That was an increase of 27.9% from its 2023 insurance revenue of US$84.8m ($146.7m), and a 457% increase since 2019 pre-Covid revenue of US$19.4m ($33.5m).
The insurer’s profit has also grown substantially, increasing from US$577,671 ($999,437) in 2019 to US$15.5m ($26.8m) in 2024.
Maritime Mutual’s parent company is an entity named Maritime Mutual Association Limited, which has a Gibraltar address - Gibraltar is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom known for its low corporate tax rate of 12.5%.
New Zealand’s corporate tax rate is 28%.
There are five listed directors of Maritime Mutual: Athena Ellis, John Hart, Julian Lister, Stephen Murphy and British citizen Paul Rankin, who is understood to have founded the business 20 years ago.
Ellis and Hart are listed as New Zealand-based, Lister is based in Hong Kong, Murphy is based in South Africa and Rankin is based in Guernsey.
Hart is the company’s legal adviser and is listed with the New Zealand Law Society as a barrister who specialises in trusts and estates and tax.
The business has had other directors in the past, including Hedwige Bereaux who was based in Switzerland, Andrew Baker who was based in Liechtenstein, and Kam Ho who was based in Malaysia.
Maritime Mutual’s staff includes two of Rankin’s daughters, Claire and Sarah, as well as 10 other staff based in Auckland, London, Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai.
Reuters reports that Rankin, his wife Agnes, Claire and Joyce are all directors of Maritime Management Administration Services, a company in Guernsey registered in British company filings as a director of British affiliate Maritime Pacific Insurance Services.
The company’s website carries a warning that it’s “not licensed to carry on insurance business in New Zealand … and not able to underwrite insurance for persons resident in New Zealand”.
Maritime Mutual says it has insured 7102 vessels in 2023, and over 23 million gross tonnage, according to its website.
The website breaks down the number of vessels insured by vessel type: 28% are listed as fishing vessels, 26% as tugs, 25% as barges, 10% as general cargo and 6% as tankers.
Back in 2020, a Dominican-flagged ship was hijacked in the Persian Gulf, and a subsequent investigation by the Dominica Maritime Administration uncovered that it had been insured by Maritime Mutual.
The investigation found Maritime Mutual’s parent company, Kitchener Trustees, was comprised of several subsidiary companies, including Design Warehouse 2011, Italian Design and La Puente Holdings among others. Several of the companies had ties to China.
The ultimate holding company for Maritime Mutual had an address listed in Gibraltar.
The correspondents in charge of liaising between the Dominica Maritime Administration and Maritime Mutual were initially from Dubai, before communications were forwarded to someone named Tey Choon based in Singapore.
The legal correspondents for Maritime Mutual during the investigation were Zhao and Co., a law firm “presumably incorporated in China”.
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
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