Digital Seaworthiness and Silent Cyber: Rethinking Marine Insurance Liability under Indian Marine Law

Abstract

The current research considers the Marine Insurance Act, 1963, and the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025, to assess nations' responses to cyber threats for assessing the liability in marine contracts. Both statutes are the primary legislation defining seaworthiness, proximate cause, perils of the sea, and warranties. Today’s marine business is highly influenced by technological advancements in the form of CPPS, sensor-based navigation, satellite-based communication and the internet. However, adoption of cyber perils per se, as per technological advancement, is completely absent under current Indian legislation, leaving a grey area in the statutory framework. As a methodology, a thematic doctrinal approach is employed in the current work. A comparison of old and new statutes has paved the way for digitisation, but cyber threats remain a common lacuna in the Indian legal framework.  Reforms are the only suggested measure that can provide safeguards for cyber perils. From expressed clause to the disclosure of digital dependency and technology-based losses being calculated as part of warranties are the only possible solutions for the insurance sector to enhance its capacity for advancement integration in its sphere.