2011년 3월 11일에 발생한 동일본대지진으로 인해 후쿠시마 원전사고가 발생하여 방사능오염손해에 대한 우려의 목소리가 높다. 특히 방사능오염손해는 선박의 안전항행에 위협이 될 뿐만 아니라, 선원의 안전과 해상운송을 통한 세계 경제의 건전한 발전을 저해시키는 원인으로 작용할 우려가 있다. 선박 또는 화물이 방사능오염손해를 입은 경우에 이러한 방사능오염물질을 제거하는데 상당한 비용이 소요될 것이며, 부득이한 경우에는 선박과 적하를 폐기처분해야 하는 경우도 발생한다. 또한 선원이 방사능에 피복될 경우 이러한 선원에 대한 치료 문제도 발생할 수 있다. 하지만 현재 방사능오염손해에 대한 사후적 대비책으로써 어떠한 방법과 근거에 의하여 보험 보상이 이루어지는지 여부가 명확하게 검토되고 있지 않은 상황이다. 따라서 이 논문에서는 방사능오염으로 인한 피해의 사후적 대비책으로써 방사능오염손해에 대한 해상보험에서의 보상 문제를 검토하고자 한다.

Section 55 (1) of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 states that the insurer is liable for any loss proximately caused by a peril insured against but is not liable for any loss not proximately caused by a peril insured against. It is, therefore, essential to determine whether it is to be recoverable under the Marine Insurance Policy attaching the Institute Cargo or Hull Clauses. But a number of important losses are excluded from the policy by subsection 2 of the same section, unless the policy otherwise provides, although these losses are proximate causes of them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the meaning of proximate cause and excluded losses in the Act. The method of this study is a literature survey. In summary, (1) if the loss is considered to have been proximately caused by a certain peril, and the peril is insured against, the claim is recoverable, (2) if there are different causes resulting in separate losses, the claims recoverable will be those due to insured perils, (3) when the effective cause of the loss is established, remote causes can be ignored, (4) when causes of loss are combined, the claim is recovera-ble if the cause which is proximate in efficiency is an insured peril, (5) if there are two causes, equal in efficiency, the loss is recoverable if one of the causes is an insured peril, but always providing the other cause is merely an uninsured peril rather than a specific exclusion, (6) although certain losses are exclu-ded by section 55 (2) of the Act, with the exception of wilful misconduct of the insured, it is permitted for provision to be made in the policy to widen the terms to include such losses.

The transport of cargoes carried by coastal and ocean-going vessels has increased with the rapid growth of the Korean economy these days. This increase of the sea-borne cargoes has made the Korean coastal traffic so congested that this can be a cause of large pollution as well as great marine casualties such as loss of human lives and properties. Marine casualties generally result from the complicated interaction of natural and human factors; the former being the topographic, marine traffic volume and meteorological conditions, and the latter being the quality of seafares. In this paper, the authors analyse the trend of marine casualties in the Korean coastal and clear up the cause of accidents and examine closely the mutual relations among sea accidents, weather conditions, and marine traffic volume. These accidents are classified into several patterns on hte point of view of ship's size, ship's type and ship's age and its characteristics of each pattern are described in detail. Also, the authors estimate the amount of economical losses resulting from marine casualties which are classified into the accident patterns, and clarify the effects of those losses on B/B(Balance Sheet) and P/L(Profit & Loss) of Korean shipping companies and Korean national economy. The analyzed results of marine casualties are summarized as follows: 1) The average number of sea accidents is 248 cases per year with the loss of 107 persons during last 13 years. 2) Collision is the top of causes of sea accidents (approx. 36.4%), shipwreck the second (approx. 20.3%), agroung the third rank (approx. 18.2%). 3) The ship's number under 1, 000G/T is approx. 74% of total ship's number of accidents. 4) 80% of total number of marine accidents is taken plact at the coastal waters. (involved ports & narrow channels) 5) Marine casualties are occur likely to in the night, the winter and the summer. 6) The average amount of economical losses is approx. 18.5 billion won. (approx. 0.14% of GNP) 7) Shipwreck is the top of the amount of economical losses (approx. 60.4%), collision the second (aprox. 24.5%), aground the third (approx. 9.9%). 8) The amount of economical losses is approx. 5.24% of gross capital of shipping co., 1.24% of shipping revenue, 1.38% of shipping total income in 1983.