Businesses have a variety of different property exposures. From Property / Equipment that stays on your business site, leasehold improvements made to your premises, to property that leaves the site. All equipment gets handled differently whether it’s office equipment, stock being delivered, portable business tools or contractor’s equipment and even laptops. There are also special risks to businesses that transport the property of others or import or export stock/materials from abroad for themselves.
What is Cargo Insurance?
Cargo Insurance for inland transportation or ocean marine transportation covers the property in transit. For Cargo policies, a specific multi-page application is required, listing a lot of the details involved for the insurers to be able to set a premium. eg. Delivery radius, frequencies of deliveries where, # of vehicles, what is being hauled (in detail). Cargo limits are determined by the maximum limit per shipment and further charged by the number of vehicles.
Cargo is easiest when it is just a simple local pick up and delivery. Eg. A mover, delivery company doing local deliveries. However, Cargo can be trickier when products are moving between countries and even overseas, as the client needs to know who is insuring the property during which stage. This is typically outlined by contract(s), but some of the time, the client hasn’t thought it through and may not know the answers.
eg. A shipment starting in Hong Kong, end to be delivered in Medicine Hat. The manufacturer may be covering the ocean portion for delivery to Canada, but then who is insuring the long haul piece from Vancouver to Calgary warehouse? Who is covering the truck delivery portion from the warehouse to the client site? All of this and more go into obtaining Cargo coverage.
To try to resolve this issue, for clients that do a lot of shipping – some insurers offer a “Stock Throughput” coverage that covers the stock basically from the start of the journey all the way to delivery to your warehouse. This allows the client to be confident their shipments are fully covered from start to finish.
If you have any questions on how best to insure your business’s property, do not hesitate to “Collis”.