Mr. Vu Dinh Giang's family has 4 tourist boats on Ha Long Bay, 3 of which were sunk by storm No. 3 while they were anchored at Ha Long International Passenger Port. These past few days, he has been sitting on hot coals because he cannot hire workers to salvage them to shore, and even if they are salvaged, he does not know where to get the money to repair them.
To build the four ships, his family and his children and siblings mortgaged four land titles and two cars to the bank. “The bank still pays interest, but now we don’t know where to get the money to repair them. We’re trying to repair one ship to gradually restore the economy, but the cost of repairing one ship can sometimes cost up to a billion dong and we have to pay out of our own pocket because none of the ships have hull insurance,” Mr. Giang worried.
According to the Ha Long Tourist Boat Association, all 25 tourist boats visiting Ha Long Bay that were sunk by super typhoon No. 3 did not have hull insurance, but only compulsory insurance.
The annual compulsory insurance purchase price is about 2 million VND/ship and the maximum compensation is only a few tens of millions for small incidents, such as collisions, which, according to ship owners, if paid by insurance, may not be enough to salvage the ship. Meanwhile, if hull insurance is purchased, in the event of a shipwreck due to natural disasters, the ship owner can be compensated by insurance companies for about 60-70% of the damage.
Explaining why he did not buy hull insurance, Mr. Nguyen Van Chung - owner of the Minh Phat 36 tourist boat, which sank at the Tra Bau storm shelter, Cat Ba - said that he had previously bought hull insurance, but after the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic situation was difficult and the boat was old, so he tried to cut down on everything he could, including hull insurance, at a rate of 15-20 million VND/boat/year.
However, many ship owners often do not buy hull insurance from the beginning, thinking that at most there will only be normal collisions, and Mr. Bui Van Tinh - who also had 3 ships sunk in storm No. 3 - is one of those ship owners.
Many ship owners are not interested in borrowing money from banks to build ships due to high interest rates and many procedures. Therefore, ship owners often mortgage their houses, cars or other assets to banks to borrow money. With this method, banks will not require ship owners to buy hull insurance to ensure capital recovery when the ship has a major accident.
According to a representative of the Quang Ninh Province Inland Waterways Port Authority, in recent days, this unit has coordinated to confirm the status of damaged ships for many tourist ships, but mainly overnight ships in Ha Long Bay. Because these ships have large investment values and have bank loans under the contract to build tourist ships, the ship owners all buy hull insurance.
Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong - Vice President of Ha Long Tourist Boat Association - said that while waiting for support mechanisms and policies and debt extension from the State and banks, the association hopes that the authorities will determine that the sunken ships were partly due to strong collisions, leading to sinking.
“There are many reasons for ship sinking, including collisions between ships due to strong storms. According to the compulsory insurance contract, this reason will be covered by insurance. In the current difficult situation, any support is good, at least we hope to cover the cost of salvaging the ship, about 30-40 million VND/ship,” Mr. Phuong suggested.
It is expected that on September 23, the People's Council of Quang Ninh province will hold an extraordinary meeting to quickly develop mechanisms and policies to support people and businesses affected by storm No.
