Monitoring, detection and insurance, brought together so that better protection means better insurance terms
London, United Kingdom (PRUnderground) August 20th, 2026
Subsea cable risk is usually managed across several systems that see different parts of the same asset. Vessel monitoring shows what is happening above a route, sensing technology can reveal activity at the seabed, and insurance deals with the financial exposure around damage and interruption. InterProtect, UltramapGlobal and Lumetec have formed a partnership to protect subsea cables, bringing vessel monitoring, acoustic detection and specialist insurance into one coordinated line of protection.
Subsea cables carry almost all international data and a growing share of the electricity that moves between countries. Most of the damage done to them is accidental. An anchor goes down in the wrong place, or a fishing vessel works too close, and the cable gives no warning that it has been struck. The first sign is usually a fault, by which time the repair and the disruption are both already running.
The partnership integrates two different sources of intelligence. UltramapGlobal's AssetMonitor® platform monitors around 100 million vessel movements globally each day, backed by teams that review vessel behaviour and can intervene when activity threatens a protected route.
Lumetec works from the opposite direction, using distributed acoustic sensing, data fusion and AI to turn fibre within a subsea cable into a sensing layer. That can reveal seabed contact and vessel activity, including vessels absent from conventional AIS data. One follows behaviour around the route as the other adds evidence from the cable itself.
InterProtect is a specialist insurer in the subsea cable market. Monitoring and sensing intelligence from this partnership is available to InterProtect's underwriters as part of the wider picture of the asset and its protection.
"Our underwriting takes account of the monitoring and detection in place on an asset," said James Harris, Head of Subsea Cables at InterProtect, which specialises in insurance for subsea power cables, interconnectors and fibre optic cables.[LD1]
When an incident develops, the evidence that explains it is often being created before any damage is confirmed. Vessel tracks show movement and behaviour, analysts record alerts and interventions, and cable sensing can add information about activity on or close to the seabed. For an owner trying to understand what happened, respond early and manage the resulting exposure, those records belong to the same risk picture even though they come from different specialists.
UltramapGlobal remains responsible for monitoring, analyst review and vessel response, while Lumetec leads on DAS sensing, detection and localisation. InterProtect alone handles insurance cover, underwriting and terms, and any discussion relating to insurance will go directly to its team.
"A cable that is watched properly gets a phone call instead of an outage," said Martin Connelly, Co-Founder and Commercial Director of UltramapGlobal. "Since 2009, we have developed our systems to understand what normal traffic looks like on these routes, and that is what lets our teams identify the vessel that should not be there. Putting that alongside Lumetec's sensing and InterProtect's cover means an owner can deal with the whole of the risk in one conversation instead of three."
Zack Spica, CEO of Lumetec, said: "Distributed Acoustic Sensing turns the cable into an instrument that reports on itself. It reads seabed contact and vessel activity along the route, including craft that are not transmitting. Set alongside AIS monitoring, it closes a gap that neither approach closes on its own."
An anchor dragging near a subsea cable can create an operational problem, a forensic problem and a financial one in a matter of minutes.
The three companies are approaching it as the same event viewed from different places, with better continuity between the information gathered above the route, at the cable and around the risk that remains.
About UltramapGlobal
UltramapGlobal specialises in monitoring and protecting subsea cables across telecoms, power, renewables, cable installation and oil and gas. Its AssetMonitor® software tracks vessel traffic around cable routes, while global monitoring teams review alerts and take agreed preventative action when vessel behaviour presents a threat. The company has worked in subsea cable monitoring since 2009 and says AssetMonitor® now monitors around 100 million vessel movements worldwide each day.
About Lumetec
Lumetec develops sensing technology for critical subsea infrastructure. Its approach combines distributed acoustic sensing with data fusion and AI to use fibre optic cable as a live sensing network, providing information on vessel activity and events occurring around the seabed. This can include anchor drags, fishing activity and vessels absent from conventional AIS feeds, adding a physical sensing layer to surface based maritime monitoring.
About InterProtect
InterProtect is a specialist insurance provider focused exclusively on subsea cables, covering power, interconnector and fibre optic assets across construction and operational risks, with capacity of up to USD 250 million. InterProtect is a trading name of Clearwater UW Ltd, an appointed representative of FCA authorised Pro MGA Solutions Limited.
Media Contact
Michael Maziarka
Commercial Revenue Manager, Lumetec Inc.
