← Back to RFS homepage
Home › Industries › Logistics & Freight Forwarding
Industry Practice · Services, health & logistics

Logistics & Freight Forwarding

Insurance for freight forwarders, NVOCCs, customs house agents and 3PL operators, cargo liability, professional indemnity and warehouse risk.

Cargo liabilityDocumentation & classification errorsWarehouse property & stock
Request a Sector Review → Speak to an Advisor
The sector

A sector that handles other people's goods, and other people's liability.

Freight forwarders carry liability for goods they do not own and exposures they cannot fully control. The right programme separates the freight-forwarder liability layer (contractual) from the warehouse and transport-fleet layers, and adds professional indemnity for errors in documentation, classification or routing.

Risk profile

Where the exposure lives.

Freight risk lives in transit, in the warehouse and in the liability you carry for other people's goods. These four first.

01
Cargo liability
Liability to shippers for loss or damage to cargo in the forwarder's care, custody or control.
02
Documentation & classification errors
Errors in bill of lading, customs filing or HS classification, typically not covered by standard cargo cover.
03
Warehouse property & stock
Customer goods in the forwarder's warehouse, plus the warehouse property and handling equipment.
04
Fleet operations
Trucks, vans and cargo vehicles operated under the forwarder's licence, third-party liability and own damage.
Recommended cover

The programme we typically place.

Each cover below is a link to the policy page. The combination, the limits and the wording are what we negotiate on your behalf.

01
Marine Insurance
Freight forwarder's cargo liability and bailee's customer-goods cover.
Learn about this cover →
02
Commercial Vehicle
Fleet cover for logistics vehicles with cargo-in-transit endorsement.
Learn about this cover →
03
Fire & Burglary
Warehouse property and stock cover with bailee's customer-goods extension.
Learn about this cover →
04
Public Liability
Forwarder's professional and general liability with documentation errors extension.
Learn about this cover →
Claim reality

What a claim tends to look like here.

A representative claim is cargo damaged or stolen in transit or while in the warehouse, layered with a liability claim from the customer whose goods you were carrying. The dispute is often about whose policy responds.

Questions

Questions we get in this sector.

Cargo cover protects the value of the goods; carrier's legal-liability cover protects you against customer claims for goods in your care. A freight operator usually needs to consider both.
Transit cover generally responds while goods are moving; stock inside the warehouse needs a separate storage or burglary cover. We place both so goods are covered end to end.
Only to the limited extent the contract and the law impose, which is usually an amount per consignment bearing no relation to the value carried. Cargo owners insure the goods; carriers insure their liability. They are different policies answering different questions.
Not by a transit policy alone once it has come to rest. Storage at a hub or a transhipment point needs to be declared, and goods sitting in a warehouse for days are a distinct exposure from goods in motion.
The maximum value on any one vehicle, and third party liability. A single loaded vehicle can carry a very large value, and a serious road accident creates a liability that has no relationship to the value of the truck.

Need a sector-specific risk review?

Speak with an advisor who has arranged cover for logistics before.

Request an Assessment →