The London-based insurer said such a regulation is crucial to the safety of container ships in view of the fact that the erroneous declaration of container weights has been identified in a number of recent high-profile maritime disasters such as those involving the MSC Napoli, Riverdance and Husky Racer.

"The Club is in a unique position to speak on this issue, insuring not only something in excess of 80 percent of all maritime containers but also with an insurable interest in ports handling around 50 percent of the world's containerized freight," said Peregrine Storrs-Fox, TT Club's risk management director.

"While the immediate debate is only part of an overall cargo integrity matrix that demands our attention, the Club has noted numerous accidents both at sea and on land, where weight misdeclaration is a material root cause," he said.

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