Owners of slave ships took out insurance on the ships which covered the ship and the cargo on the ship which included the slaves. Before a slave ship set sail its owners would be sure to acquire insurance on it so that if something happened and the ship did not successfully return they would be able to receive the money they invested in the ship.
Under the Command of Luke Collingwood The Zong began its voyage to Jamaica on September 6, 1781. The conditions on this slave ship were much like the conditions on slave ships, forcing the slaves to be tightly packed together, and resulted in disease and malnutrition. By November 29th seven white men and 60 slaves had died. Collingwood began to worry about the future of their voyage and the affect that disease would have it. According to Law about insurance on slaves:
"The insurer takes upon him the risk of the loss, capture, and death of slaves, or any other unavoidable accident to them: but natural death is always understood to be excepted: by natural death is mean't, not only when it happens by disease or sickness, but also when the captive destroys himself through despair, which often happens: but when slaves are killed, or thrown into the sea in order to quell an insurrection on their part, then the insurers must answer."
Knowing this Collingwood decided it would be best to throw the slaves overboard and simply collect the insurance on them as opposed to having more of them die of natural reasons and having to accept a loss on them. His decision wasn't a wonderful one since the ship was not under any danger. According to the law the ship would only be covered by the insurance if the ships were thrown overboard in the face of danger to the ship. As a result when the owners of the ship went to claim their insurance of the slaves the insurers refused them. The owners made a claim that the slaves were thrown overboard due to depletion of water supplies, but the insurers found out this was not true, and refused the claim.
http://www.hullwebs.co.uk/content/j-georgians/people/william-wilberforce/slaveship-zong.htm
http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/slavery/the_zong.html
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