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Shipowner may be required to maintain insurance or financial security to meet their potential liabilities on a national or international level. This is a main approach for covering shipowners’ financial responsibility under both international civil liability conventions and the OPA 90. The P&I Club is a mutual insurance association. “Mutual” means that the members contribute to a fund from which the losses or expenses suffered by them can be paid. Despite the emergence of other alternative means of providing insurance in the U.S. market, shipowners’ oil-pollution liability is predominantly insured by P&I Clubs. The Clubs routinely provide insurance for liabilities not readily available elsewhere on the insurance market. Externally, the Clubs have established cooperative relationships with other organisations as regards handling oil-pollution incidents and related liability issues.

Strict liability is the chosen liability rule in the Bunkers Convention, and insurance is also required. In practice, even where there is no legal duty to insure against liability, the liable person tends to voluntarily procure the insurance policy against such a large-scale liability. In earlier conventions, the person who can most easily be identified was chosen as the liable person and also the person to take out insurance. The answer to the questions of who shall be liable and who is in a better position to insure against liability under the Bunkers Convention is, however, novel to other civil liability conventions: the shipowner that includes a group of different persons is strictly liable for pollution damage; however, only the registered owner is required to take out insurance.