Transit and cargo · programme sizing
This sizes a transit programme rather than quoting a premium: your annual carryings, the per-sending limit your largest consignment needs, and whether your dispatch pattern belongs on an annual open policy or on voyage-by-voyage cover.
Annual carryings are the total value of goods you move in a year. They set the basis the policy is declared and adjusted against, and they determine whether an open policy is worth having at all.
The per-sending limit is the maximum value exposed in any one transit, and it is the number that decides whether a claim is paid in full. A single truck, container or consignment carries the whole of its own loss. If your average sending is fifteen lakh but one shipment a quarter runs to eighty, a limit set on the average leaves you sixty-five lakh short on exactly the loss you could least afford.
An annual open policy covers every sending within the agreed scope automatically, with certificates issued per shipment and premium adjusted against declared turnover. Nothing travels uninsured because somebody forgot to arrange cover, which is the most common way a cargo loss ends up uninsured.
Below about a dozen consignments a year, specific voyage policies usually cost less and the administrative simplicity of an open policy is not worth paying for. Above that, the open policy is both cheaper per rupee carried and materially safer.
Open policies also handle the awkward cases better: a sending that leaves at short notice, a consignment routed through an unplanned port, a buyer who changes delivery terms after the goods have left.
This is where exporters lose claims that were, on paper, insured. Under CIF and CIP the seller arranges and pays for insurance to the named destination. Under FOB and CFR the risk passes to the buyer once the goods are on board, and the seller's cover ends there.
The gap that catches people is the inland leg. Under FOB the seller still bears the risk from their factory in Bhilwara or Kishangarh to the ship's rail at Mundra or Nhava Sheva, and a great many sellers assume the buyer's marine policy has already started. It has not.
The other gap is minimum cover. CIF obliges the seller to insure only on Institute Cargo Clauses (C), the narrowest of the three, which does not respond to theft, non-delivery or wetting. Buyers frequently assume they have full cover and discover the difference after a loss.
We read the sales contract alongside the policy, because a marine claim is decided by both documents together and only one of them is usually reviewed.
Marine rates are not a table. The rate depends on the commodity and how it behaves in transit, the packing, the route and its accumulation points, the mode, the vessel or carrier, the claims history and the clause set. Two exporters shipping identical values from the same city can be rated very differently, and correctly so.
Any site that returns a marine premium from three inputs is guessing. What this page gives you instead is the structure the programme should take and the limits it should carry, which is the part you need settled before a rate means anything.
Send the sizing through and we will come back with real terms from the market, usually the same day.
An annual policy that automatically covers every consignment within an agreed scope, with certificates issued per shipment and the premium adjusted against declared turnover at the end of the year. It removes the risk of a sending travelling uninsured because cover was not arranged in time.
As a rate applied to the declared value of the consignment, usually invoice value plus freight plus a margin of ten per cent. The rate itself depends on commodity, packing, route, mode, carrier, clause set and claims history, which is why it is quoted rather than tabulated.
The seller. Under CIF and CIP the seller must arrange and pay for cover to the named destination. The minimum obligation under CIF is Institute Cargo Clauses (C) only, which is narrow, so buyers who want full cover should specify Clauses (A) in the contract.
It should, and a well-written policy covers warehouse to warehouse. The gap arises under FOB and CFR terms, where sellers often assume the buyer's policy covers the run from factory to port. It does not; the risk stays with the seller until the goods are on board.
Standard practice is invoice value plus freight plus ten per cent, which represents the profit and incidental costs lost with the goods. Insuring only the invoice value leaves you short of what the consignment was actually worth to you.
Related: Marine export insurance · Marine import insurance · Inland transit insurance