Iran, Russia and the New Zealand insurer that kept their sanctioned oil flowing

Last Christmas, the tanker Yug cruised out of the Chinese port of Qingdao after offloading 2 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian oil. Near the Arctic, a vessel carrying Russian crude churned through icy seas, bound for India. Six thousand miles away, a third ship unloaded its cargo of Iranian oil off the coast of Malaysia.

The three tankers had different owners, different operators and different clients. But they shared one thing: a small insurer headquartered in New Zealand, backstopped by some of the world’s biggest reinsurance firms.

The company, Maritime Mutual, is run by 75-year-old Briton Paul Rankin and family members. For more than two decades, it has insured everything from tugboats to ferries and cargo ships.