Cargo Insurance

With 95 percent of global consumers living outside the United States and more than 80 percent of the world’s purchasing power located overseas, businesses are increasingly required to operate within a complex global supply chain, relying on buyers and suppliers from all over the world. Consequently, a vast amount of cargo is transported every year – by land, sea and air freight. According to the World Shipping Council, around 130 million freight containers were transported by the international shipping liner industry in 2016, with an estimated value of over $4 trillion. And the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts that 62.5 million metric tons of cargo will be carried by air in 2018.

Most of the time, carriers do a good job and your cargo arrives at its destination unscathed and on schedule. But every so often, bad things happen to good cargo. SensiGuard reported 649 cargo thefts throughout the United States in 2017, with an average value of $146,063 per theft, while an average of 568 containers (not counting catastrophic events) were lost at sea every year between 2008 and 2016. If you include catastrophic events (such as a shipwreck), it’s an average of 1,582 lost containers every year.

Statistically, that may not sound disastrous. But what happens when it’s your cargo on the line, and your business has to deal with the reality of losses that are potentially worth millions of dollars? That’s where cargo insurance comes in, helping to protect you against all types of risk.