Guy Chet__marine insurance: harmonizing government and commerce

The practice of insuring ships and cargoes against risks at sea insulated merchants and investors from much of the damage caused by commerce raiding while allowing them to continue reaping the benefits of wartime commerce. Since insurance underwriters were the primary victims of commerce raiding, it was the marine insurance sector, rather than the merchant class as a whole, that took the lead in trying to suppress commerce raiding. This effort to suppress commerce raiding was part of a much larger project undertaken by underwriter associations to reduce shipping risks (as well as insurance claims). Many of these efforts involved lobbying national governments to take action at sea, but they also involved private and governmental public-relations campaigns aimed at merchants, ship owners and mariners. These public relations efforts implicitly endorsed national governments’ emerging ideology of state, or state-building. Specifically, underwriters aimed to harmonize the interests and the habits of the merchant class, on the one hand, and national governments, on the other.