Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
My understanding is that the vast majority of the ransoms are actually coming from the insurance companies. While I'm sure the insurers would like nothing more than eliminating the pirates, there's small issues such as international law getting in the way and the fact that what they're paying out is a very small fraction of the insurance premiums they're collecting world wide.
To employ private security to sit on their hands for potentially months at a time would cost a lot more, and guess where those costs would be passed on to? The shipping companies, and ultimately us, the consumers of the goods those ships are carrying.
Economics are driving the whole thing when you strip it down. Payouts of ransoms just aren't significant enough to warrant the expenditure by private companies (even the larger multinationals) to secure each and every ship, or even a token random selection. The companies bottom line is better served by prodding the various world governments to take action - costs the companies nothing that they're not already claiming against their insurance, or writing off in some way to avoid tax....
|
hmm..So the Insurance companies are the ones that should pay mercs...probably cheaper than paying insurance claims.....