| The corps of average adjusters was put in place in the military arsenals
under the Napoleonic code. These average adjusters were in fact the first
maritime surveyors : civil servants in charge of the coordination and planning
of sailing ship repairs, due to damages, perils of the sea or a military
campaign. It was in Toulon and Brest that those skilled men practised their
administrative and technical knowledge.
Before the second world war the profession of maritime surveyor didn’t
really exist. In those days, surveyors in the merchant domain were maritime
engineers and naval architects in the domain of yachting, or deck officers
or retired mechanics.
In the fifties, insurance companies established a list of surveyors they
commissioned according to purely economical criteria.
In the sixties and seventies ; the profession progressed and diversified.
A surveyor worthy of the name, is a liberal technician acting in all the
fields of yachting and maritime domain (insurer, constructions, services,
legal advice… and free.
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In 1983, the professional association FIEM was set up. The FIEM approved
surveyors, respond to the professional ethics determined by its statutes.
That is : professionalism, experience, competence, diligence, intellectual
honesty and a total independence of judgement, free of any economical pressure.
For 20 years, the strict and statuary selection of our members has been
a guarantee to seamen. Only surveyors who have been a maritime surveyor
during more than three years may aspire to FIEM approval, after a detailed
examination of their file and theirs technical, legal and moral competences.
The FIEM aims are as follows:
Represent the profession at the highest technical and qualitative level
to the public authorities, insurance companies, loan societies and individuals.
Promote the profession, bring together surveyors and professional maritime
advisers in order to help them in the most varied fields in the exercise
of their profession with regard to the rights of consumers.
The exercise of the profession of surveyor demands a wide knowledge of
maritime technologies (yachting or merchant). The training of a surveyor
respected by seamen takes 5 to 10 years of professional practise with a
recognized surveyor. Any rapid training will only lead to disillusion,
commercial failure for the pseudo-surveyor and offence of the users of
the sea. A surveyor is fundamentally a man with theoretical and practical
experience. His role is also to act as conciliator and mediator between
two parties in conflict in the maritime domain.
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