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Industry Practice · Heavy industry & manufacturing

Steel & Metal Fabrication

Cover for foundries, rolling mills, fabrication plants and metal-processing operations, covering plant, stock, transit and export marine.

Furnace & process firePlant & machinery breakdownWorker burn & crush injuries
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The sector

High-capex assets, high-volume throughput, narrow margins for downtime.

Steel and metal fabrication operations combine high-value plant (furnaces, rolling mills, presses, CNC), continuous-process exposure where unplanned downtime erodes margin disproportionately, and significant inbound/outbound transit volume. The insurance programme needs to protect against asset loss AND production interruption, not just one or the other.

Risk profile

Where the exposure lives.

Foundries and fabrication carry fire, machinery breakdown and stock exposure in equal measure. These four come first.

01
Furnace & process fire
Hot-work environments are the dominant fire-claim source in Indian manufacturing. Self-ignition and electrical faults compound the exposure.
02
Plant & machinery breakdown
Rolling mills, presses and CNC equipment carry high capital cost and long lead-times for parts. Breakdown is often the largest single financial event.
03
Worker burn & crush injuries
Hot metal, moving machinery and lifting operations create classic high-severity employee claims.
04
Export marine exposure
Coil and plate exports to overseas customers carry contractual transit risk under Incoterms, typically CIF or CIP.
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
Fire & Burglary
IPP Fire policy with high sums insured and machinery-loss-of-profits extension.
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02
Plant & Machinery
Machinery breakdown cover for furnaces, mills, presses and CNC with reinstatement value and BI.
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03
Workmen Compensation
EC Act cover at hazardous-occupation rates with elevated permanent-disability limits.
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04
Marine Insurance
Export marine on ICC-A or ICC-B clauses, plus inland transit for finished-goods despatch.
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Claim reality

What a claim tends to look like here.

A representative claim is a fire in a fabrication shop that consumes stock, tooling and part-finished orders, so the loss is as much about interrupted contracts as burnt assets. Machinery breakdown of a press or furnace is the other frequent trigger.

Questions

Questions we get in this sector.

Raw material is usually insured at cost, while finished goods can be insured at cost plus a margin or at selling price by extension. Getting this right avoids underinsurance on the goods most exposed to a fire.
No. Sudden electrical or mechanical breakdown of plant is covered under a separate machinery-breakdown policy, not fire. We place both so a furnace failure and a fire are each covered.
It is the main one. Cutting, welding and grinding are the leading cause of fire in fabrication units, and insurers expect a hot work permit system. Its presence or absence affects both the terms offered and how a claim is examined.
Not unless declared. Fabrication work routinely leaves the premises for a process and comes back, and during that time it is at the fabricator's risk but outside an undeclared policy.
At the cost of materials plus the labour and overhead absorbed to that point, not at raw material value. Work in progress on a fabrication floor can be a large share of the stock at risk and is regularly declared at the value of the steel alone.

Need a sector-specific risk review?

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