Ships class certificate is issued by a class society, the main purpose is to certify if the ship is fit for the purpose she was built for and that she complies with rules stipulated in class society rules which are concerned in the first place with the safety of the ship, not in term of safety equipment only but in term of ship design sufficiency,  hull integrity, machinery and equipment performance

Design sufficiency is determined during design stage where class society review design plans and approve it which means that the design meets the rules of that class society

During construction stage, the construction is supervised by the class society to ensure that the design is executed in a satisfactory way

After that when the vessel is constructed and launched the vessel is subject to periodical survey to ensure that the hull and machinery is kept in safe and good condition

Class certificate is not a mandatory certificate required by IMO and/or flags administrations, but it was developed in the first place because of the need of the shipping industry to set rules for ships structure to provide insurance companies a complete idea if a specific ship is safe to cover, then it developed and became a corner stone certificate in ships certifications where required by many parts involved in shipping such as ship owners, operators, charterers etc.

In UMC we have developed our own rules for surveying ships in services to ensure that the ships are in satisfactory condition