What Is Cargo Insurance?

During the international shipment of your goods, there can be a possibility that damage, loss, theft, or even contamination may occur. When this happens, your business deals with financial loss and if you or your company constantly ships goods globally, this loss will accumulate over time. This loss could be greatly decreased or even avoided with cargo insurance. Cargo insurance is a type of transportation insurance that covers the value of goods that ship through air land and ocean.

Why is Cargo Insurance Valuable?

Unexpected accidents may sometimes occur during the worldwide shipment of your cargo to its destinations and since there are many different aspects that go into transportation logistics, these accidents could go unseen until the cargo reaches the final point, and by then it’s too late. This is where the value of insuring any shipment with cargo insurance before departing comes into play. There is a wide variety of situations that your cargo can be covered from, such as:

•  The cargo sinking into the ocean
•  The cargo being denied entry through customs
•  The transportation vehicle of the cargo has been damaged
•  Cargo damage from natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes tornadoes, etc.

Also with the world becoming more globalized, not only is there a greater risk to your cargo with the increasing methods of transportation, but also a greater chance that your cargo can be covered from these risks.

Who is Liable for Cargo Damage?

When damage happens to your cargo or your cargo gets lost at sea like in the incident previously described ONE Aquilla, the carriers of the cargo carry the liability. The issue with this is that because the liability that the carriers carry is small in comparison to the value of the damage costs to your cargo, especially if the cargo shipment is large. The carrier liability also does not include defective products, so it’s very limited. With cargo insurance, you pay a small up-front fee relative to the total cargo that is being transported. The fee is not only small compared to the cargo damage, but also compared to the opportunity cost of having your goods gone, for example, if you’re a company that was planning on selling the goods for a profit. Despite not being required, cargo insurance is highly recommended, not only for companies but individuals as well.

Unexpected Incidents

As previously described, in the world of freight forwarding there is a chance that the goods may be lost or damaged on the way to their destination. One such unexpected incident that happened recently was in the Pacific where container vessel ONE Aquilla lost over 100 containers overseas due to bad weather conditions.

The vessel was on its way to Long Beach California from China when a storm struck, and the containers vanished under the sea. It’s important to note that with the Pacific being the biggest ocean, it usually takes more than 10 days for a shipment to go from China to California; meaning that there are bound to be choppy seas and bad weather conditions on the journey.

Shipping containers usually weigh over a ton and with the number of containers that were lost overseas, (over 100), think about the amount of capital from assets that were lost. With cargo cover, this large monetary loss could have been easily avoided by the people and companies shipping their goods.