When a crew member reaches the point of leaving a vessel under difficult circumstances, insurance is not necessarily what is on their mind. They are likely to be thinking about their next job, their references, whether walking away means being quietly blacklisted in an industry where most opportunities still travel through word of mouth.

What most do not know is that a financial safety net may have existed from the moment they were placed on board. Agencies operating under the Maritime Labour Convention are required by law to have it. For many crew, that protection has existed throughout their career. They were simply never told.

That gap between what exists and what crew are told is one of the quieter failures of the yachting recruitment sector.

What the law actually requires

Under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, recruitment and placement services operating in MLC-ratified states must hold a System of Protection. This is typically an insurance arrangement, or an equivalent, that compensates a seafarer for specific financial losses if a placement falls apart.

The losses covered include unpaid wages, repatriation costs, holiday pay, sickness pay and other contractual entitlements set out in a seafarer’s employment agreement or applicable collective bargaining agreement.

The requirement is not new. It has been part of the MLC framework since the Convention was adopted. What has changed, through recent MCA guidance, is the explicit requirement that seafarers must be informed about that protection before or at the point of placement. Not buried in documentation. Actually told.

The gap between policy and practice

A number of crew have reported never once being told that a System of Protection existed on their behalf. Never told what it covered, never given a contact number, never shown the certificate. They completed placements, signed contracts, joined vessels and built careers, all without knowing that a financial backstop had been in place the entire time.

The protection existed. The disclosure did not. That is not a minor administrative oversight. For a crew member in crisis, it is the difference between knowing they have somewhere to turn and believing they have nothing.

There are commercial reasons for that silence. The insurance is costly, and its cost increases with utilisation. The business incentive to hold the policy for compliance purposes while not actively advertising its existence is not difficult to understand, even if it is difficult to defend. What is harder to justify is the position this leaves crew in when they most need to know.

What the new guidance clarifies

Two MCA notices published in June 2026 clarify the responsibilities of UK recruitment and placement agencies under the Maritime Labour Convention.

The main change is straightforward: agencies must tell crew about their System of Protection during recruitment and before, or while, they are formally engaged.

This protection may compensate crew for financial losses if the agency fails or if the shipowner does not meet certain obligations in the employment agreement. It is not enough for the agency simply to have this protection in place, crew must be told what it covers, what their rights are and how they can access it.

This responsibility is not limited to UK-based recruiters. Under French law, private seafarer recruitment and placement agencies established in France must hold insurance covering certain financial losses experienced by crew.

Compass Rose Crew provides a good example of what this looks like in practice. The agency informs placed crew about its insurance protection, explains how to use it and offers direct support if they experience difficulties making a claim.

Founder Shannon Walker-Nel says that, although recruiters may have the required insurance, crew are not always told about it:

“Recruiters should have the insurance, but in my entire career I was never told I had their support. I have placed senior crew on board yachts who have said we are the only agency that has ever shared the insurance with them.”

This demonstrates the difference between simply holding the required protection and ensuring crew know it exists, understand how to access it and have support available if they encounter difficulties.

What this means for due diligence

The new guidance does not make recruitment agencies responsible for what happens on board once a crew member is placed. That responsibility remains with the Owner, the Management Company, the Captain and the DPA.

What it does make clearer is that the recruiter’s obligation does not end at the point of placement. The question now in circulation across the industry is sharper than it used to be: what protection was in place, was the crew member informed about it, and were there visible warning signs about the vessel or employer before the placement was made?

Some agencies have been meeting this standard for years. French-registered agencies, for example, cannot legally launch and place crew without demonstrating that a System of Protection is in place. Some go further, sharing the insurance certificate directly with each crew member at placement, together with contact details for how to access it if needed. Senior crew placed by these agencies have noted that it was the first time, across multiple placements and years in the industry, that any agency had done so.

The information gap has a cost

A crew member who leaves a vessel without serving notice may find that the System of Protection does not cover their situation. The terms matter. The circumstances matter. Those are the details that can make the difference between receiving compensation and receiving nothing.

If that crew member had been told, at placement, what the protection covered and what it did not, they could have made a more informed decision about how to handle a deteriorating situation on board. For a person in a difficult position at sea, knowing what recourse is available is itself a meaningful form of protection.

The MLC exists to create a floor of standards below which the treatment of seafarers should not fall. The question the recent guidance raises is whether the recruitment sector has been treating that floor as a genuine obligation or as an administrative threshold to clear quietly.

The answer, based on crew experience, is not consistent. The gap between what exists on paper and what crew are actually told remains wide.

Questions worth asking at placement

If a crew member is placed by an MLC-compliant agency, these are reasonable questions to raise before joining a vessel:

Does the agency hold a System of Protection, and what does it cover?

What financial losses are included, and under what circumstances can it be accessed?

Are there conditions, such as serving a notice period, that affect eligibility?

Who is the contact if the protection needs to be used?

These are not adversarial questions. They are the questions a crew member is entitled to ask. An agency operating to the standard the MLC requires should be able to answer them without hesitation.

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