Communication in emergency response

Abstract

In maritime emergency response time is the most crucial factor. As most ship owners nowa-days employ broker for their insurance-related activities, well-structured, organized and time-ly communication in emergencies between ship owners and their insurance broker is analysed in this study. The subject is approached by analysing a questionnaire, which has been sent out to various ship owners in order to find out how ship owners perceive communication shall be initiated and structured. Three different groups of ship owners, ranging from small to corpo-rate ship owning companies are focused on. The results of all three sample groups are put in contrast and unveil that actual communication pattern and ship owners’ perceived optimal communication are to great extent in line with each other, but are not ideal. The conclusion of this study shows various space for improvement of how communication between the ship owner and the insurance broker could be enhanced for a better flow of information. This ap-plies for ship owners of all three sample groups to different extent.