Subsea Oil Pipeline Insurance

An energy and marine program is assembled from the following coverages. Which ones you need depends on whether you own and operate the line, install it, inspect and maintain it, or decommission it — and whether you work inland, in state waters, or offshore.

• Operators extra expense and control of well. For operators, the cost of regaining control of an uncontrolled flow, redrilling or restoring the line, and the seepage and pollution response that follows. This is the coverage that funds the first days of an incident, when spend runs fastest.
• Pollution liability and removal of debris. Third-party bodily injury, property damage, and natural resource claims from a release, plus the cost of containment, cleanup, and removing wreck and debris from the seabed. Under the Oil Pollution Act, removal costs and damages attach to the responsible party whether or not anyone was negligent.
• Physical damage to the pipeline and subsea assets. The line itself, risers, manifolds, umbilicals, valves, and pumping and metering facilities — against anchor and trawl strikes, dropped objects, hurricane and mudslide movement, corrosion events, and free-span or scour failures. Written on an energy property form, not a standard property policy.
• Loss of production income and business interruption. Revenue lost while a line is shut in for repair, along with the throughput and deficiency payments owed under transportation agreements. Subsea repair schedules are driven by vessel availability and weather windows, so the indemnity period matters more here than in almost any other industry.
• Construction all risk and builders risk. Physical damage during pipelay, tie-in, and commissioning — the pipe in transit and on the vessel, on the lay barge, on the seabed before burial, and through hydrotest — plus delay in start-up where a lender or partner requires it.
• Marine liability, hull and protection and indemnity. Lay barges, dive support and construction vessels, ROV spreads, tugs and supply boats, and crew boats: hull damage, collision, wreck removal, and liability for striking platforms, other vessels, or the line itself. Watercraft are excluded outright by general liability forms.
• Maritime employers liability, Jones Act and USL&H. Divers, ROV pilots, welders, and marine crews fall under federal regimes rather than state workers' compensation. Jones Act seamen, Longshore and Harbor Workers' Act employees, and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act workers each need coverage placed by name.
• Charterers legal liability and contractual indemnity. Liability assumed when you charter a vessel and under the knock-for-knock indemnity wording standard in offshore master service agreements. What you sign in the contract determines what your policy has to answer for.
• Professional and inspection liability. For engineering, integrity management, survey, and inspection firms: errors in route selection, span and free-span analysis, corrosion modeling, cathodic protection design, or a missed anomaly in pigging or ROV survey data.
• Excess liability and financial responsibility. Layered excess above marine, pollution, and employers liability, sized to the limits your operating agreements and federal certificates of financial responsibility demand. Primary limits on an energy risk are exhausted by a single serious event.
• Decommissioning, cyber and terrorism. Abandonment and plugging obligations that survive production, cyber coverage for the SCADA and control systems that operate the line remotely, and war and terrorism cover for critical energy infrastructure — all commonly excluded from the base program.