Highest ransoms paid to pirates (year)

Commercial shipping companies and their insurers have often paid ransoms rather than lose ships and crews. The worst year for such ransoms was 2010, when US$238 million was paid out with an average payment of US $5.4 million for each incident. Ransoms are generally sought by Somali pirates, while pirates in other regions more often stole the vessel or cargo. In 2009–10 an estimated $415 million was paid out in ransoms to pirates, with the average ransom demand escalating from an average of US$150,000 in 2005 to more than US$4 million in 2010.