Lloyd's of London

A Windward assessment, republished by Hellenic Shipping News, said Lloyd's-market underwriters withdrew war-risk cover entirely from Saudi-linked hulls crossing Bab al-Mandeb from 24 July, rather than simply repricing it: tanker transits there fell 39%, 46% among Saudi-linked vessels, to roughly 7.5 a day by 30 July. No insurer or Lloyd's primary source has confirmed the figures directly, so the market's own position is unconfirmed pending the Joint War Committee's next designation review.

The distinction matters because a rate move is priced daily and can reverse in a week; a withdrawal removes the contract itself for a defined class of hull, and reinstating it needs an underwriting committee's decision, not a market swing. That gap is why the withdrawal followed barely five weeks after Lloyd's had opened its first substantive Hormuz cover of the war, a $400m Chubb-led consortium launched 19 June.

Lloyd's Joint War Committee has held its Hormuz war-risk designation to one trigger throughout the conflict: a signed, deposited government instrument or a UN Security Council resolution, neither of which has existed since UK Maritime Trade Operations upgraded the strait to its critical tier on 4 May 2026 after 41 vessel incidents in ten weeks.

That single-trigger rule is why headline diplomacy, Ceasefire announcements, MOUs, verbal stand-downs, has repeatedly moved the futures price without moving the market's own premium: Western ships continued paying $10-14 million extra per voyage in insurance through late May even as Brent swung on diplomatic optimism. The Lloyd's Market Association has been explicit that safety, not the presence of cover, is now the binding constraint on Hormuz transit.