Rubio Says Hormuz Can Reopen 'Without Toll' as Insurance Premiums Hold at 5%

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that U.S. and Iranian negotiators have made progress on the outline of an arrangement that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping “without any toll” being imposed on transiting vessels, according to the Middle East Monitor. The “no toll” formulation is the clearest U.S. public rebuttal to date of the toll-monetization proposal floated earlier in the week by Tehran and brokered by Oman, and it lands hours before the White House is expected to unveil the broader 60-day ceasefire framework.

Rubio framed the talks as advancing on substance even as the headline structure remains unsigned. In a video clip released by Al Jazeera and the Guardian, the secretary said negotiators had made “significant progress” on the package that would end the war and restore freedom of navigation through the strait. He stopped short of declaring a deal in hand. President Donald Trump, in remarks reported by the BBC, described the agreement as “largely negotiated” and said reopening the Strait of Hormuz was among its core terms.

The “No Toll” Line

Earlier in the week, the Iranian government and Oman, acting as mediator, floated a proposal under which transit through the strait would be billed to commercial operators — a structure Tehran framed as a sovereign right and Washington characterized as a tax on global energy commerce. The Trump administration rejected the toll structure outright, and Rubio at the time pushed a NATO-style “maritime freedom construct” as the U.S. counter.

Sunday’s “no toll” language formalizes that rejection inside the negotiating text itself. According to the Middle East Monitor account, Rubio said the U.S. and Iranian sides have reached preliminary agreement that any reopening will be conducted on a freedom-of-navigation basis, with no per-vessel charge, no insurance surcharge collected at the strait, and no Iranian role in clearing or scheduling civilian traffic. The jurisdictional question — whether Tehran has any standing to impose conditions in the strait at all — has been a contested issue since Iran published a map last week asserting control over portions of the channel that fall within Omani and Emirati territorial waters.

Insurance Hasn’t Moved

The diplomatic progress has not yet shown up in the most sensitive real-time gauge of strait risk: marine war-risk insurance premiums. Khaleej Times, citing Bloomberg data, reported Sunday that hull-value war-risk additional premiums for vessels transiting the strait remain pinned at roughly 5% — five times the pre-war rate of about 1% — with major underwriters in London and Singapore declining to reprice ahead of a signed text.

A 5% premium on a fully loaded VLCC valued at $100 million translates to $5 million in additional insurance cost per single transit, a figure that flows directly into delivered crude prices. Shipowners, brokers and protection-and-indemnity clubs have made clear they will not roll back the surcharge on the basis of a negotiated outline or a presidential statement. They are waiting on a signed ceasefire text, a defined enforcement mechanism, and a stable period of incident-free transits before pricing returns to baseline.

The Khaleej Times account notes that some operators have begun running scenario models for a graduated step-down — 5% to 3% on signing, 3% to 1.5% after 30 incident-free days, full normalization at 60 days — but no underwriter has publicly committed to that schedule.

What Sunday Brings, What Sunday Does Not

The White House is expected to unveil the broader 60-day ceasefire framework at a televised event later today, with Rubio and Vice President JD Vance scheduled to brief on the components. The Middle East Monitor reported separately that the 60-day structure is the operative framework for both the cessation of hostilities and the staged reopening of the strait, with Iran agreeing in principle to the plan.

What Sunday’s announcement is unlikely to produce is a signed bilateral treaty. The Guardian’s live coverage noted that diplomats on both sides continue to describe the package as an “outline” or “framework” rather than a final agreement, and that critical implementation details — verification, sequencing of sanctions relief, the disposition of frozen Iranian assets and the role of Gulf states in monitoring the strait — remain open. Israel has pushed back on several elements of the draft.

Regional actors are also pressing for structural changes that go beyond the bilateral text. An Al Jazeera opinion piece Sunday called on the Gulf Cooperation Council to establish a regional sovereign insurance pool to backstop strait transits during future crises, arguing that reliance on London underwriters left Gulf economies exposed during the closure.

What to Watch

Three signals over the coming 72 hours will determine whether Rubio’s “no toll” line translates into shipping-cost relief: the text of the White House Sunday unveil and whether it includes the no-toll language verbatim; the first underwriter response from Lloyd’s syndicates and the Joint War Committee on Monday morning London time; and Iran’s official readout, which has so far come only through Omani intermediaries. A signed framework with verifiable no-toll language could pull war-risk premiums down by mid-week. An outline without a text will not.