KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia Airlines’ two crashes in less than five months are sending tremors through the aviation insurance market — not least because the carrier’s $2.25 billion overall liability policy is mysteriously missing a standard phrase that usually limits insurers’ payments for search-and-rescue costs.

马来西亚吉隆坡——在不到五个月的时间里，马来西亚航空公司(Malaysia Airlines)遭遇了两起飞机坠毁事件，这在航空保险市场引发震动——尤其是因为该公司保额高达22.5亿美元（约合140亿元人民币）的全面责任保单中，不可思议地缺少了一项常规条款。这一条款通常会规定保险公司对搜救费用的赔偿上限。

The looming payments are coming as underwriters face other claims, because of the shelling of Libya’s main airport a week ago, with 20 planes damaged, and a pair of deadly Taliban attacks on Karachi’s airport in Pakistan.

除了这些赔偿之外，各保险公司目前还面临着其他索赔，包括利比亚的主要机场遭到炮击，20架飞机受损，以及塔利班对巴基斯坦卡拉奇的机场发动的两场致命性攻击。

For just one category of aviation insurance — war risk insurance on the planes — estimated claims for incidents in the last five months now total up to $600 million for a sector that collects $65 million a year in premiums.

在过去五个月中，仅航空保险中的战争险这一险种，索赔金额就达到了大约6亿美元，而这个险种每年的保费收入只有6500万美元。

Airlines have many insurance policies. But the main one is an “all risk” policy that covers most crash-related expenses, including what is usually the biggest: paying for settlements with passengers’ next of kin.

航空公司会购买多种保险。但主要的就是“全险”，这种保单涵盖大多数与事故相关的开支，其中包括通常最大的开支：支付乘客近亲索取的补偿金。

Malaysia Airlines’ broader policy has a high cap by industry standards — $2.25 billion for each crash — because the carrier operates big Airbus A380s, each configured for 494 passengers, and it wanted ample coverage.

以行业标准来看，马航全面保单的赔偿上限金额较高——每起事故最高赔偿22.5亿美元。因为马航运营的飞机包括空中客车(Airbus)的A380机型，这种大型飞机能够运载494名乘客，马航希望保险可以充分覆盖各种费用。

But the policy is unusual in that it does not have a separate sublimit for search-and-rescue costs — it is limited only by the overall $2.25 billion cap for the policy, three people with knowledge of the policy said. It is unclear why the clause was omitted, they said.

但三名了解保单的人表示，这份保单与常规的保单不同，它没有单独为搜救费用设定赔偿上限——只设定了22.5亿美元的总体上限。他们表示，并不清楚这一条款为何会缺失。

The absence of a sublimit for search-and-rescue costs means that Malaysia Airlines could seek reimbursement for tens of millions — and potentially hundreds of millions — of dollars in search costs if the Malaysian and Australian governments decide to bill the airline for even part of their considerable expenses in looking for Flight 370, which vanished on March 8.

没有单独设定搜救费用的赔偿上限意味着，如果马来西亚和澳大利亚政府决定让马航承担搜寻费用，哪怕只是一部分搜寻费用，马航都可以索要数千万美元，乃至高达数亿美元的赔偿。两国政府为搜寻于3月8日消失的MH370航班花费了巨额资金。

An Australian delegation has been sent to Malaysia to broach the question of sharing costs for the Flight 370 investigation and seeking insurance reimbursement, said people with knowledge of the visit and the insurance policy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

知情人士表示，澳大利亚已经派代表团前往马来西亚，讨论分摊MH370搜寻费用的问题，并寻求保险公司赔付。这名知情人士要求匿名。

By tradition, governments do not seek reimbursement from an airline for search-and-rescue costs. As a result, the airlines do not typically need to ask their insurers to cover these costs; the insurers cover only so-called commercial costs, though their contracts do allow governments to seek reimbursement.

按照传统，政府不会要求航空公司支付搜救费用。因此，航空公司一般不会要求保险公司承担此类开支。保险公司只赔付所谓的商业费用，但合同中的确允许政府寻求赔偿。

In the case of Flight 370, the Australian government is paying 8 million Australian dollars, or $7.5 million, to commercial contractors for a survey of the floor of the Indian Ocean, and has set aside another 60 million Australian dollars to hire a contractor to tow deep-sea submersibles across 60,000 square kilometers of the ocean floor to look for the missing plane.

就MH370航班而言，澳大利亚政府向商业承包商支付了800万澳元（约合4600万元人民币）对印度洋海底进行测绘，并还预留出6000万澳元，用于雇佣承包商利用深海潜水器，在海底六万平方公里的区域搜寻失踪的飞机。

Australian officials, Malaysian officials and the lead underwriter of the broad liability policy, Allianz of Germany, all declined to comment, as did the broker who negotiated the insurance policy on Malaysia Airlines’ behalf, the London-based Willis Group Holdings.

澳大利亚官员、马来西亚官员，以及全面责任险的牵头承保人德国安联保险(Allianz)都拒绝置评。代表马航就保单开展谈判的保险经纪公司，总部位于伦敦的韦莱集团(Willis Group Holdings)也拒绝发表评论。

The crash of Flight 17 appears to have caught the war risk insurance market particularly by surprise. Insurers often prohibit airlines from flying across dangerous areas, or cancel their policies, but most carriers kept flying over Ukraine until the crash. The number of flights there dropped only 12 percent in the month leading up to it.

MH17坠机事件似乎让战争险市场措手不及。保险公司通常禁止航空公司飞越危险区域，否则就取消保单，但大多数航空公司在此次坠机事件发生前，仍在飞越乌克兰上空。事件发生前的一个月，飞越该区域的航班只减少了12%。

“One assumes that if the war risk underwriters thought there was any risk, they would have prohibited airlines from flying or canceled their policies,” said Paul Hayes, head of accidents and insurance at Ascend, an aviation consulting firm in London.

伦敦航空咨询企业航升咨询(Ascend)的事故与保险负责人保罗·海斯(Paul Hayes)说，“人们会认为，如果承保战争险的保险公司感觉存在风险，就会禁止航空公司飞越该区域，或者取消保单。”

Malaysia Airlines’ war risk policy has a separate, much lower limit than the overall policy for claims for search-and-rescue costs. As in most aviation insurance contracts, a provision caps claims for these costs to a small percentage of the overall value of the policy.

与涵盖搜救费用的整体保单相比，马航的战争险保单有一个单独的、金额更低的限额。与大多数航空保险的合同一样，其中一个条款把关于这些开销的索赔，限制到了保费总额的一小部分。

The Atrium Underwriting Group, the lead underwriter for Malaysia Airlines’ war risk insurance, said in a statement that it had immediately approved payment for the loss of the aircraft in Flight 17. Aon, a London-based company that is one of the world’s largest insurance brokers, said over the weekend that the plane had been insured for $97.3 million, but Atrium did not confirm the value.

马航战争险的牵头承保人Atrium保险集团(The Atrium Underwriting Group)在声明中称，它在第一时间批准对MH17进行补偿。世界最大的保险经纪公司之一，位于伦敦的怡安集团(Aon)周末表示，这架飞机的投保金额为9730万美元，但是Atrium没有核实这个金额。

The crash of Flight 370 triggered a half-payment from Atrium under the war risk policy after adjusters concluded that there was a substantial but not ironclad case that the crash may have involved pilot suicide or other criminal action. War risk policies also cover deliberate, malicious acts.

根据战争险保单，Atrium为MH370的坠毁支付了一半的赔偿金，因为理算员认定，虽然证据仍不确凿，但有大量资料表明MH370的坠毁可能与飞行员的自杀或其他犯罪行为有关。战争险的赔付范围也包括蓄意的恶意行为。

The Allianz-led policy — Allianz itself has only 9 percent of the exposure, having shared the rest with other underwriters — paid the balance of the cost of that aircraft, which had been insured for $100.2 million, insurance executives said.

保险业高管透露，由安联牵头的保单支付了飞机成本的余款，那架飞机的投保金额为1.002亿美元。安联只需承担保单中9%的风险，其余费用由其他保险公司分担。

Insurance adjusters agreed with the Malaysian government there was a strong but not fully proved possibility that Flight 370 was lost because of deliberate action, given that the plane made a series of at least four well-executed turns over the course of an hour before heading south across the Indian Ocean until it apparently ran out of fuel. The final compromise followed a precedent in other cases in which pilot suicide was suspected but not proved.

保险理算员同意了马来西亚政府的意见，认为虽然没有强有力的证据给予充分证明，但是MH370的消失有可能是故意所为。这是因为飞机在一小时的行程中，曾至少四次在受到良好操控的情况下改变航向，后来才向南飞越印度洋，直到最后耗尽燃油。最后的妥协是遵循其他先例达成的。在过去的事故中，也有过怀疑飞行员自杀，但最后未经证实的情况。

“It was basically split between the two policies,” said Neil Smith, the head of underwriting at the Lloyd’s Market Association, a trade group composed of Lloyd’s of London insurance underwriters.

劳合社市场协会(Lloyd’s Market Association)保险负责人尼尔·史密斯(Neil Smith)说，“基本上由两份保单承担。”劳合社市场协会是一个包括劳合社(Lloyd’s of London)旗下保险公司的行业团体。

Airline insurance premiums are set through an annual process in which underwriters bid for which provider will offer the lowest premiums at the best terms. Few airlines’ policies have been renewed yet; Malaysia Airlines’ has not. Until this year, Malaysia Airlines paid some of the lowest insurance premiums in the global aviation market, because it had a fairly young fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes.

每年，航空公司的保费都会通过专门的过程来确定，保险公司会参与竞标，以最低的保费提供最好的条款。目前已经更新保单的航空公司极少，马航的也没有。直到今年，马航所支付的保险费还处在国际航空保险市场的最低水平，这是因为它旗下由波音和空客飞机组成的机群还相对年轻。

“With a shallow premium pool fully exhausted and an expectation of an immediate review of the current hull war premium rating, MH17 and incidents recently in Pakistan and Tripoli look likely to be the events that may halt the decline in aviation premium income and usher in the reintroduction of increases once again,” said Gary Moran, the head of Asia aviation brokerage for Aon.

怡安集团的亚洲航空险经纪业务负责人加里·莫兰(Gary Moran)说，“原本资金就不多的保费池已经完全用光了，人们预期当前针对机体的战争险费率很快就会重新评定，MH17事件，以及最近巴基斯坦和的黎波里发生的事件，很可能会结束航空险保费收入下降的现象，促使保险费用再度提高。”

Many leases and other contracts in the airline industry require carriers to be insured. Despite recent losses, Mr. Smith said, airlines were still able to obtain insurance, though he declined to speculate on the likelihood of increases in premiums.

航空业的许多租约和其他合同都要求对飞机投保。虽然最近发生了事故，但史密斯表示，航空公司仍然能买到保险，不过他不愿意估测保费提高的可能性。

“If it wasn’t available,” he said, “the airlines wouldn’t be able to fly.”

“如果没有保险，”他说，“飞机就没办法飞了。”