Treasury has designated two Iranian marine insurers it says sell vessels cover against risks Iran creates in the Strait of Hormuz

Iran has started selling insurance against itself, in Treasury's account of it.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated ten entities on Wednesday under the Iran petroleum sanctions programme, and two of them are insurance companies rather than shipping ones. Treasury says the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority broker and issue policies that vessels must buy to transit the Strait of Hormuz, and that the risks the policies cover, seizure prominent among them, are overwhelmingly created by Iran. The department calls the arrangement extortion in its own headline. That characterisation is Treasury's.

The route runs through Iran's own regulator. The Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company was established by the Central Insurance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the policies it brokers are approved by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, an entity Treasury designated on May 27 of this year as backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. HormuzSafe is described as a digital insurance firm developed by Iran's Ministry of Economy, advertising traffic control, security and emergency response alongside cover, and accepting Bitcoin and other digital assets in payment. Treasury says Babak Morteza Zanjani, the regime financier it sanctioned earlier this year, promoted it to his social media followers.

Both were designated under Executive Order 13902 for operating in the financial sector of the Iranian economy. That is the same order used against the eight shipping entities in the same action, which were designated for operating in the petroleum sector.

Those eight are unremarkable in a way that is itself the point. They are registered in Hong Kong and the Marshall Islands, most of them incorporated within the last four years and four of them within the last thirteen months, at addresses in Kwun Tong, Kowloon Bay, Sha Tin and Ajeltake Island. Each links to one tanker. Seven carry crude oil and one carries chemicals and products, they were built between 2002 and 2007, and they fly Barbados, Vanuatu, Mozambique and Marshall Islands flags, except for the AL SALMI, which the list records with an unknown flag and Panama as its former one.

Treasury puts the running total at more than 100 vessels linked to Iran's shadow fleet sanctioned since the beginning of the year.

The release ties the insurance scheme to revenue lost to what it calls Operation Epic Fury, and quotes Secretary Scott Bessent saying that with inflation in the triple digits the regime is desperate for cash and that the United States will not allow Iran to hold global commerce hostage. No figure for the scheme's revenue appears anywhere in the document. Nor does any statement from the Central Insurance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ministry of Economy, or either designated company, and Money and World did not seek one before publication.

Eight tankers on a designation list is the ordinary shape of an Iran oil action, and this desk has reported several of them. The two insurers are the part of Wednesday's list that is not about cargo at all.