Several load combination methods have been developed for predicting the maximum loads acting on a ship’s hull girder within a specified time period. However, these methods have not been verified by a comparison with measurements. This paper compares predicted and measured maximum hull girder bending moment of a container ship. Point-crossing method, load coincidence method, Ferry Borges-Castanheta model, Moan and Jiao’s method, peak coincidence method, Turkstra’s rule, method of square root of the sum of squares (SRSS) and Söding formula are used for the comparison. The results show that (1) Ferry Borges-Castanheta model and Söding formula provide best estimates, (2) point-crossing method, load coincidence method and Moan and Jiao method provide sufficiently accurate estimates, (3) Turkstra’s rule provide reasonable estimates, (4) method of SRSS provides fairly low estimates and (5) peak coincidence method provides very conservative estimates.