Before the piracy boom, marine insurers like Lloyd's had no reason to levy premiums to cover war risk (under which piracy falls), kidnapping and ransom.
It follows similar action taken in Europe as governments step in to fill the void left by international insurers that decided following the September 11 attacks on the United States that they would no longer provide war-risk liability.
Starting in the 1950s, paralleling the Korean War, was the increasing risk of nuclear war.
Saddam thought (and said) 20 years ago that after its losses in Vietnam, America would not risk war to rescue Kuwait.
So is there a risk of returning to the situation of May, when there was a widely perceived risk of war?
The risk of war will remain at least until after October, the expected date of elections on India's side of Kashmir.
For many Britons, the decline of nationalism is a good thing, making it easier to improve trade relations and reducing the risk of war.
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Since 1981 we've been committed to seeking fair and verifiable arms agreements that would lower the risk of war and reduce the size of nuclear arsenals.
To be sure, it does not want to risk a war over an action by the other side that falls short of immediate preparation for war.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concerns about the standoff on the Korean peninsula, which has continued for weeks as North Korea makes repeated threats. about the risk of war.
"The fear of nuclear war has diminished partly because the risk has receded significantly with the end of the Cold War, " says Nick Bostrom, director of Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute.
No doubt, the immediate cause for the sudden rise in the price of oil and gasoline is fear of disruptions in the supply of oil due to unrest in the Middle East and the growing risk of war with Iran.
Foreign governments are warning their citizens against travel to India while there is a risk of war with Pakistan, its nuclear armed neighbour so the invitation to foreign press barons is meant as a signal that India is open for business.
More to the point, it is inconceivable that the U.S. would ever launch this all-out attack, and risk nuclear war, unless the direct, vital interests of the U.S. were imperiled, and this would not credibly include an attack on Japan alone.
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But nobody is willing to risk a wider war with Russia over its claimed near-abroad.
The leadership in Pyongyang must appear wild and irrational enough to risk a suicidal war.
This time the losses may be far bigger as war coincides with a high risk of terrorist attacks.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, an incendiary couple, risk a proxy war through the different ethnic groups they sponsor in the country.
They said more research is needed to find out if women whose partners served in the war really were at higher risk.
The risk of another war in Georgia is far from over, and the economic crisis has not made Russia any friendlier to the West.
Also at risk from the war next door could be Albania's status as an oasis of religious tolerance in a sea of sectarian hatred.
The cold reality is that the effect has been the opposite, that the increasing length and scope of the war puts us at greater risk.
Yet unless the U.S. is ready to risk a trade war that would further cripple the global economy, pandering to lawmakers' bellicose instincts will lead nowhere.
This sudden onset of military braggadocio could be a ruse for enabling Messrs Yeltsin and Putin, in Istanbul, to explain why they cannot risk stopping the war in Chechnya.
In the same vein, war-crimes trials due to start shortly over some of the atrocities perpetrated during Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan risk becoming seen as exercises in partisan spite.
While all experts agree that the risk of nuclear war has increased in the subcontinent, there is little consensus about what the exact effects would be except that it would reach nightmare proportions.
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