Costa Concordia in the context of Dream-class cruise ship

A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of shipwrecking, which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately three million shipwrecks worldwide as of January 1999, according to Angela Croome, a science writer and author who specialized in the history of underwater archaeology (an estimate rapidly endorsed by UNESCO and other organizations).When a ship's crew has died or abandoned the ship, and the ship has remained adrift but unsunk, they are instead referred to as ghost ships.

In insurance claims, a total loss or write-off is a situation where the lost value, repair cost or salvage cost of a damaged property exceeds its insured value, and simply replacing the old property with a new equivalent is more cost-effective.

Such a loss may be an "actual total loss" or a "constructive total loss". Constructive total loss considers further incidental expenses beyond repair, such as force majeure.