Allianz Safety and Shipping Review 2026: Fewer Losses, a Bigger Kind of Risk

Allianz Commercial's Safety and Shipping Review 2026 carries good news on the surface: 2,818 reported shipping incidents on vessels over 100GT in 2025, down roughly 16% from 3,353 in 2024. Underneath that number, the review makes a case that the nature of maritime risk is shifting in a way the incident count alone doesn't capture.

What's Actually Causing Incidents

Machinery damage or failure remains the single largest cause of shipping incidents globally, accounting for over half of the total (1,505 incidents) — a reminder that maintenance discipline, not headline-grabbing collisions, is where most real-world risk still lives. Collision (260) and fire followed.

Where They're Happening

The East Mediterranean and Black Sea region recorded the highest number of reported incidents (622), with the British Isles close behind (619) — and the British Isles holds the distinction of the most incidents over the past decade overall.

The Bigger Story: A 'New Maritime Order'

Allianz frames the closure and reported mining of the Strait of Hormuz as a signal of structural change, not a one-off event — escalating security risk along strategic shipping corridors, disrupted established trade routes, higher risk premiums, and a strategic shift toward resilience over pure cost efficiency. For crews, that translates into route planning, security awareness, and contingency thinking becoming a bigger part of day-to-day operations than they were even a few years ago.

Test Your Knowledge

Think you've got this covered? Put it to the test in Crew Connect's free Knowledge Checker — try a quick general safety round and see how you score.

Related Reading

• IMCA Safety Statistics 2025: Injuries Down, Fatalities Up — What That Combination Actually Means