When a seafarer dies by suicide on board, the family loses a son, a husband or a father far from home. Then a second blow often follows. The company or its insurer writes that the death was the seafarer’s own act, and that no compensation is payable.
That letter is not the end of the matter. A death on board is called suicide far too easily, and calling it suicide does not by itself cancel the family’s rights. This article explains why, and what a family can do even after a claim has been refused. Our separate article deals with a different situation, where a seafarer goes missing at sea and the company suggests he may have jumped: Missing at sea, then called a suicide.
If you are a seafarer and you are struggling right now, please talk to someone today. You do not have to wait until you are home.
SeafarerHelp, run by ISWAN, is free, confidential and multilingual, 24 hours a day: +44 20 7323 2737. In India, Tele-MANAS, the Government of India’s free mental health helpline, is open 24 hours a day on 14416 or 1-800-891-4416.
The Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC) makes the shipowner responsible for the financial consequences of sickness, injury and death of seafarers. It also requires financial security for compensation when a seafarer dies or suffers long-term disability “due to an occupational injury, illness or hazard”.
The MLC then allows national law to exclude the shipowner’s liability in a few cases. One of them is injury or sickness “due to the wilful misconduct” of the seafarer. In India, Rule 19(7) of the Merchant Shipping (Maritime Labour) Rules, 2016 says the Director General of Shipping “may exclude” the shipowner’s liability where injury or sickness is caused by the seafarer’s wilful misconduct. Many employment agreements and collective agreements contain a similar clause for death caused by the seafarer’s own wilful act.
This is why companies and insurers reach for the word suicide. If the death was a wilful act, they say, the exclusion applies and nothing is owed.
Three points cut the other way.
The exclusion is about a wilful act. A wilful act is a deliberate choice made by a person in control of his mind. A man whose mind has been broken by months of bullying, sleeplessness and fear is often not making a free choice at all. His death may then be the end result of an illness caused by his work. A death “due to an occupational illness” is exactly what the MLC compensation is meant to cover.
Courts take this argument seriously, but they ask for proof. In Seapower Shipping v. Heirs of Sabanal (19 June 2017), the Supreme Court of the Philippines held that the employer must prove the seafarer’s wilful act, and that “evidence of insanity or mental sickness may be presented to negate the requirement of willfulness”. The same court set a high bar. It said that “mere abnormality of the mental faculties does not foreclose willfulness”, and the family in that case lost because it had little more than evidence of odd behaviour.
Indian courts have not yet decided a seafarer suicide claim of this kind in any judgment we have found. But Indian law already accepts that the strain of work can cause a death. In Param Pal Singh v. National Insurance Co. (14 December 2012), the Supreme Court held that the strain of long-distance driving was a material contributory factor in a driver’s death, and that the death arose out of his employment.
The lesson for families is simple. A suicide note, or a finding of suicide, does not close the door. What decides the case is evidence of what the ship did to the seafarer’s mind.
The MLC sets minimum hours of rest: at least ten hours in any 24-hour period and 77 hours in any seven-day period. Rest may be split into no more than two periods, one of which must be at least six hours long, and the interval between rest periods must not exceed 14 hours. On many ships the rest-hour records show full compliance while the logbooks, cargo records and port calls tell a different story. That gap is evidence.
Since 8 January 2019, the MLC’s guidance on health and safety has asked flag States to take account of the industry’s guidance on eliminating shipboard harassment and bullying, and asked shipowners to include harassment and bullying in their risk evaluations. In June 2025 the International Labour Conference went further and adopted amendments that expressly ban shipboard violence, harassment, sexual harassment, bullying and assault. These are expected to come into force in late December 2027. The direction of the law is clear: a ship is a workplace, and a toxic one is a breach of duty.
The MLC gives seafarers a right to repatriation at no cost, and the period of service before that right arises must be less than 12 months. A seafarer kept on board past his contract, with relief promised and then cancelled, is under real and foreseeable strain. Every request for sign-off and every refusal should be found and kept.
Amendments to the MLC in force from 23 December 2024 require that seafarers who need immediate medical care are promptly disembarked and given access to medical facilities ashore for serious conditions, including suicide risk. If a seafarer told the master, a senior officer or the company doctor that he was not coping, and nothing was done, the company’s own knowledge becomes the heart of the family’s case.
Before joining, the seafarer was examined by an approved doctor and declared fit. Some companies also carried out a psychometric test. This helps the family in two ways. It answers any claim that an illness was hidden when he signed on. And it shows that whatever went wrong with his mental health went wrong after he joined the ship.
A refusal letter is the company’s opening position. Families should do the following.
For Indian-flagged ships, the Directorate General of Shipping was reported in April 2025 to have committed to ensuring compensation for all deaths on board, including suicides. Families should check whether a notice to that effect has since been issued, because it may change the position for their claim.
Ship records are overwritten, crew members sign off and scatter, and some contracts and collective agreements set short deadlines for claims. Some remedies against a ship expire within a year. A family that writes early, asks for the records early and keeps copies of everything is in a far stronger position than one that waits for the company’s own inquiry to finish.
This article is for general information only. It does not constitute legal advice, and no lawyer-client relationship arises from it. Every claim turns on its own contract, flag and facts. If your family is dealing with the death of a seafarer, please contact the firm directly.
For specific questions on a matter, rather than general commentary, please contact the firm directly.