A Vehicle-Carrier Fire Every 37 Days

Allianz's Safety & Shipping Review 2026 puts a number on it: a fire on a vehicle carrier roughly every 37 days, against a container-ship fire every 17. Fires on large vessels topped 200 in 2025 — the second-highest annual total of the past decade, with at least nine total losses. And Allianz's marine risk lead is blunt about the cause that worries underwriters most: the EV fire risk at sea is, in his words, 'not under control.'

What the 2026 review actually counted

Fire is no longer a tail risk on the data — it is a recurring event. Allianz logged more than 200 fire incidents on large vessels in 2025, down from 2024 but still the second-highest of the decade, with at least nine total losses. Roughly 30% of those fires were on container, general-cargo or ro-ro vessels. Reduced to a cadence, that is a container-ship fire about every 17 days and a vehicle-carrier fire about every 37 — frequencies, not freak events.

Why batteries are the trend line

Because the cargo is scaling faster than the controls around it. Allianz notes lithium-ion battery shipments are already roughly six times higher than five years ago and are projected to double again by 2030, with the battery market forecast near US$322 billion by then. Misdeclared and improperly packed cargo remains a leading fire cause — about a quarter of cargo-related incidents — and while that figure is anchored in the container trade, the lesson crosses straight to a vehicle deck: you cannot fight what you did not know you were carrying.

'Not under control' — the underwriter's words

"While regulatory changes are in progress, we cannot say this is a risk that is under control. This is still very much a live issue and one that will only get worse with electrification."

— Capt. Rahul Khanna, Global Head of Marine Risk Consulting, Allianz Commercial

When the marine market's own risk lead says a hazard is not under control, that judgement does not stay in a report — it migrates into renewal questionnaires, deductibles and survey requirements. A vehicle-carrier fire every 37 days is the kind of frequency that reprices a book, and owners answer for it whether or not a regulation has caught up.

The 2028 gap

The binding rules trail the cargo by years. Mandatory IMO regulation specific to electric vehicles does not enter force until 1 January 2028, and the SOLAS/FSS Code detection amendments phase in across new builds in 2026 and existing ships by the first survey on or after 1 January 2028. That leaves 2026–27 as an exposed window: the EVs are loading now, the fires are happening now, and the prescriptive requirement that would mandate earlier vehicle-level detection is not yet in force. In that gap, the mitigation is the operator's to choose, not the regulator's to compel.

What owners can do inside the gap

Shorten the interval between a fault and a response, because that interval decides whether a single faulting vehicle becomes a constructive total loss. Conventional smoke and heat detection confirms a fire that already exists; an early per-vehicle thermal layer flags the heat rise before smoke, buying the response time the 37-day cadence keeps proving owners need. It is also an auditable risk feature an underwriter can credit now — the one move that pays in both the safety case and the renewal, ahead of the 2028 deadline rather than because of it.

Sources

• 1. Allianz Commercial — "Safety & Shipping Review 2026" (published June 2026): vehicle-carrier fire every 37 days; container-ship fire every 17 days; 200+ large-vessel fire incidents in 2025 (second-highest of the decade), at least nine total losses; lithium-ion shipment growth (~6× in five years, doubling by 2030) and ~US$322bn battery market by 2030.
• 2. The Maritime Executive / gCaptain — coverage of the Allianz 2026 review, incl. the Capt. Rahul Khanna quote on EV fire risk not being 'under control.'
• 3. Riviera Maritime Media / IMO SSE 12 (9 March 2026) — IMO focus on vehicle-carrier cargo-deck fires; mandatory EV-specific regulation entering force 1 January 2028.
• 4. IMO — Resolution MSC.555(108), FSS Code detection amendments: new builds from 1 Jan 2026, existing ships by first survey on/after 1 Jan 2028.
• 5. [VERIFY: sources differ on scope — gCaptain cites ~250 fire incidents across all vessel types (up ~20% YoY), while SAFETY4SEA/Allianz cite 200+ on large vessels (down from 2024). Confirm the exact figure and denominator against the Allianz 2026 primary.]
• 6. [VERIFY: the ~6× lithium-ion shipment growth and ~US$322bn 2030 battery-market figures are drawn from review coverage — confirm against the Allianz 2026 report text.]