At midnight Thursday, the deadline set by Gard, NorthStandard, and three other Protection & Indemnity clubs expired. No new commercial transits through the strait of Hormuz were documented overnight. More than 150 vessels sit at anchor in The Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea, with no legal mechanism to move.
P&I insurance is the legal foundation of commercial shipping — without it, a vessel cannot be chartered, cannot enter most ports, and in many flag-state jurisdictions cannot lawfully sail. Every major P&I provider has now withdrawn war risk cover for The Gulf, Hormuz, and Iranian waters. The closure is no longer military-contingent. It is an insurance event. Vessel traffic had already fallen 80% below normal by Tuesday; after Thursday midnight, the remaining trickle stopped.
President Trump announced Tuesday that the US Development Finance Corporation would provide government-backed political risk insurance and Navy escorts. Neither is operational. The US Navy told industry leaders it lacks sufficient assets for a regular convoy programme, according to Lloyd's List and US News. The last comparable effort — Operation Earnest Will during the 1987–88 Tanker War — escorted 11 re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers over 14 months; the current crisis involves more than 150 vessels from dozens of flag states with no re-flagging framework in place.
The structural consequence extends beyond the fighting. P&I clubs require weeks of risk reassessment, surveyor access, and underwriting review before reinstating coverage. Every day the closure holds adds days to the post-war reopening timeline — a self-reinforcing dynamic in which the economic damage of the war increasingly detaches from the war itself. Roughly 20% of the world's traded oil transits through Hormuz. The chokepoint is sealed not by mines or warships but by the absence of a signature on an insurance certificate.
