Before February, insuring a supertanker for a single Hormuz transit cost roughly 0.2 percent of hull value. Within days of the first strikes, quotes ran 1.5 to 3 percent — and up to 5 percent for vessels with American, British, or Israeli ties. [1]

The market has rebuilt around that reality rather than reversed it. Lloyd's and Chubb launched a consortium writing $200 million of hull and P&I capacity plus another $200 million for cargo; Washington backstopped the whole structure with a $40 billion reinsurance program anchored by Chubb. [1] The June memorandum bought sixty days of toll-free passage. That window expired mid-August — straight into renewed traffic. CNN counts crossings up 27 percent this week even as Iran's strait authority keeps withholding permits. [2]

Underwriters are pricing the overlap. As Khaleej Times reported when premiums first stabilized, "when risk has been repriced that sharply, it does not unwind overnight." [3] September renewals now price day-61 risk: a blockade still running, permits still withheld, hulls moving anyway.

The watch is which way the volume cuts. More transits could give underwriters the data to shave rates. Or it could simply mean more tonnage exposed at war prices — normalization for traffic, not for premiums. Owners, charterers and underwriters read the same tape and reach different conclusions; that disagreement is what September's renewal season exists to settle.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco