LONDON — The Strait of Hormuz is technically open. Iran agreed to reopen the waterway as part of Tuesday's ceasefire. The US Navy confirmed no hostile interdiction on Wednesday. And yet the ships are not moving. [1]

Over 1,000 vessels remain queued on both sides of the strait, according to industry tracking data compiled by Insurance Journal and confirmed by Lloyd's List. [2] The largest container lines — Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM — have not resumed transit. The reason is not military. It is actuarial.

Maersk's statement Wednesday was precise in its caution: the ceasefire "may create transit opportunities, but it does not yet provide full maritime certainty and we need to understand all potential risks." [3] Hapag-Lloyd echoed the language. Neither company committed to a timeline. Neither mentioned what both know privately — their insurers have not reinstated war-risk coverage for the strait.

This is the bottleneck the ceasefire cannot unblock by decree. War-risk insurance for Hormuz transit was withdrawn or priced at prohibitive levels weeks ago, after Iranian forces began interdicting tankers and the US Navy expanded its presence in the Persian Gulf. A two-week pause in hostilities does not reset the Lloyd's market's risk models. Underwriters need sustained evidence of safe passage — not a diplomatic announcement, but data: ships transiting without incident, days accumulating without threat. [4]

The scale of the queue tells its own story. Breakbulk News reported that the figure had surpassed 1,000 ships, including tankers carrying crude from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iraq, as well as container vessels carrying manufactured goods between Asia and Europe. [2] Every day those ships sit idle, demurrage costs mount. Every day they reroute via the Cape of Good Hope, transit times extend by two to three weeks and fuel costs multiply.

Euronews noted that even the few vessels tracked transiting Hormuz since Wednesday — Lloyd's List counted just three — had current or historic ties to Iranian-flagged operations, suggesting the strait remains open primarily for vessels with existing Iranian relationships. [5]

The insurance standstill creates a perverse outcome. The ceasefire is real enough for markets — oil dropped below $95 and the Dow surged 1,300 points. But the ceasefire is not real enough for the people who underwrite the physical movement of goods. Financial markets trade on expectation. Insurance markets trade on evidence. The gap between the two is currently 1,000 ships wide.

Iran, for its part, closed the strait again briefly on Wednesday evening, PBS reported, in what appeared to be a signal that Hormuz control remains a live instrument of leverage — ceasefire or not. [6]

For Maersk and its peers, that signal confirmed what the insurance market already priced in: a two-week pause is not a guarantee. Until it becomes one, the ships will wait.

-- DARA OSEI, London