Australia's dependence on shipping to move exports and energy supplies is running into a maritime workforce that keeps getting smaller and the consequences are starting to look like an underwriting problem, not just a staffing one. The Maritime Union of Australia and offshore energy operators have separately warned that the nation's pool of seafarers has declined over the past year, adding local weight to a shortfall the industry has watched build for over a decade.
Captain Hari Subramaniam, Howden's chief growth officer for marine, who spent 17 years at sea before joining the marine insurance business, said the warning signs were never subtle. "BIMCO and the International Chamber of Shipping produce a workforce report every five years and it's not a new trend," he said. "We have seen the seafarer shortage coming for the last few reports - it's not new." What's changed, he argued, is that the retention crisis long treated as theoretical has arrived: "The seafarer talent retention crisis wasn't so evident - we saw it coming, but it wasn't fully blown."
For brokers pricing marine risk, the shortage isn't only about ships going uncrewed - it's about the seafarers who are on board carrying more strain. Subramaniam pointed to a growing body of safety data linking financial and family pressure directly to incidents at sea. "It comes down to distraction and that's where psychologists are now coming into play, examining mental, financial, emotional and psychological well-being," he said. That reframes crew wellbeing from a human-resources issue into a loss-prevention one - a shift brokers advising hull and P&I clients are increasingly expected to understand rather than leave to shipowners alone.
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David Parmeter, chair of the Australian Mariners Welfare Society (AMWS), made a similar point about what extended time away does to a workforce already stretched thin. "If someone is going to be on a vessel for nine months, that's a long time away from home and a long time away from family," Parmeter told the virtual maritime industry event, 2026 Crew Welfare Week. "That compounds fatigue, the sense of isolation and the mental health challenges that go with that." For an industry trying to retain the crews it already has, that isolation is as much a retention risk as a welfare one.
Commercial pressure is starting to reward shipowners who act on this. Vessel-rating schemes such as the Tanker Management Self-Assessment (TMSA) and the Dry Bulk Management System now factor crew welfare directly into ratings that charterers use to select ships. "Better facilities for your crew means an improved rating and better charters," Subramaniam said. This detail gives brokers a board-level argument, tied to charter revenue and vessel rating, rather than a purely humanitarian one, when advising shipowner clients on where to invest.
The workforce strain isn't confined to deep-sea crewing either and it's already showing up in the numbers brokers themselves are contributing to. The 2026 BIA National Jobs & Skills Survey - run by the Boating Industry Association (BIA) across a membership that explicitly includes marine brokers and insurers alongside manufacturers, retailers and trades - found more than 90% of the sector concerned about a shortage of skilled labour, with 45% of respondents reporting a consequent loss of revenue. BIA CEO Andrew Fielding said the results confirm the shortage has moved past an operational irritant. "Workforce shortages are no longer just an administrative headache – they are a direct threat to industry prosperity," Fielding said.
Australia's own broking market is already responding to the wider marine capacity squeeze. Lockton has opened a new Queenstown office extending its trans-Tasman marine offering, part of a broader push by Australian-based brokers into New Zealand and Pacific shipping accounts - expansion that puts more brokers in direct contact with shipowners and ship managers navigating the same crewing pressure.
For brokers renewing marine, energy and offshore accounts, the shortage translates into a short list of practical questions:
How is the client managing crew fatigue and rotation length against current staffing levels?
What welfare or retention investment is factored into their TMSA or Dry BMS rating strategy?
Has a tighter crewing pool changed who's actually on the bridge or in the engine room compared with the risk profile last underwritten?
None of these questions are new in isolation but when asked together, at renewal, they surface a risk picture that's shifted meaningfully in the past twelve months. Its a picture that loss ratios and retention costs are already starting to reflect.
