P&I Renewal 2026 — What Changed for RoRo Tonnage

At the 20 February 2026 renewal the twelve International Group clubs asked for general increases averaging about 6%. Five percent was the most common figure, requested by seven clubs; the American Club and Steamship Mutual went to 8%, and the UK P&I Club set 7.5%. Those are across-the-board increases, not a car-carrier surcharge. For vehicle-carrier owners the renewal that matters happens one level down, in each fleet's own record and in what the club thinks of its exposure.

What did the 2026 general increases look like?

Moderate by recent standards, and similar across the Group. Broker trackers from Lockton, Marsh and Gallagher recorded a mean general increase of around 6%, with the Japan P&I Club, the Shipowners' Club and West of England at 5%, the UK Club at 7.5%, and Steamship and the American Club at 8%. A general increase is the club's starting point for every member's renewal: it covers the club's own claims trend and reinsurance costs, and it is applied before any adjustment for an individual fleet.

Why is a general increase not a car-carrier price?

Because P&I is mutual and priced on record. Every member of a club gets the general increase; what each owner then pays depends on its own claims history, fleet profile and the club's view of its risk. A fleet with a large fire or wreck-removal claim in its record renews well above the headline figure, and a clean fleet may renew at or near it. So the question for a car-carrier owner is not what the Group did in February, but how the club reads that owner's exposure.

Where does car-carrier exposure land in P&I?

In the liabilities that follow a serious fire: wreck removal, pollution, crew injury and loss of life, and the costs of a place of refuge. Wreck removal is the one that grows fastest. Under the Nairobi Convention it is a strict liability of the owner, and on Golden Ray in 2019 the removal ran past $842 million against a hull valued at about $62.5 million. Claims above each club's own retention are shared through the International Group's pooling arrangement and its general excess-of-loss reinsurance, which is why a single car-carrier casualty is felt by owners who never carry a car.

Not every fire produces that tail. Felicity Ace sank in 3,000 metres of water in 2022, which ended the salvage and removed any wreck question; Fremantle Highway was towed to Eemshaven and discharged. The size of the P&I bill depends on where and how the fire ends, and that in turn depends on how early it was caught.

What can an owner bring to the renewal?

Evidence that the fire risk is managed, in a form an underwriter can check. What clubs ask varies, and their questionnaires are not published, so treat the list below as the evidence that answers the insurers' own stated priorities rather than a club checklist. IUMI's September 2025 best-practice paper sets those priorities: detection and verification treated as one step, fixed systems applied early, manual firefighting as a last resort.

• The fleet's loss record, with the causes and the corrective actions taken.
• The loading controls in force: state-of-charge policy, screening of used or damaged vehicles, and the declaration chain from booking to stowage.
• Detection above the SOLAS minimum, and how an alarm is verified without sending crew onto the deck.
• Records of drills and of real alarms, showing time from detection to decision.

Sources

• 1. Lockton — 'P&I renewals: economic volatility forces clubs' tough stance on general increases'; Marsh — 'P&I club renewal 2026: general increase update'; Gallagher — 'Talking P&I: market update and 2026 renewals': mean general increase ~6%, 5% the most common (7 of 12 clubs), American Club and Steamship Mutual 8%.
• 2. UK P&I Club — general increase of 7.5% for the 2026 renewal; Japan P&I Club, Shipowners' Club and West of England — 5% announcements.
• 3. NTSB and US Coast Guard reporting on Golden Ray (2019): wreck removal above $842 million against a hull value of about $62.5 million. As analysed in 'Golden Ray: Anatomy of a Stability Capsize'.
• 4. IUMI — 'Risk mitigation for the safe ocean and short-sea carriage of electric vehicles', September 2025.
• 5. Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks, 2007 — strict liability of the registered owner. As analysed in 'Is Wreck Removal a Car Carrier's Biggest Risk?'.