Inland Marine Insurance
When business insurance first became popular, Ocean Marine Insurance was a commonly purchased policy. An Ocean Marine policy is meant to protect cargo shipped via the sea. Those looking for Transport Liability Insurance specific to marine cargo should consider this policy.
As times changed, so evolved shipping and insurance needs.
If your business is shipping cargo on land, we’d like to introduce you to Inland Marine Insurance. The insurance that protects your cargo after it leaves the ocean.
Read on to understand if this type of insurance is right for your business.
What Is Inland Marine Insurance?
Commercial Inland Marine Insurance, from a very basic level of understanding, covers cargo that spends very little time, and sometimes no time at all, on the water. In today’s world, we ship to all kinds of places instead of just the major port cities. That means that goods are transferred to trains, planes, barges, and many other forms of transportation to get them to their final destination. If shipping companies only wanted to protect items that were transported on the water, they would be fine with Ocean Marine Insurance. However, to protect the cargo the remainder of the way, this type of insurance is important to have.
It may seem as though there should be a policy that covers both ocean and land transportation at the same time. If you use both methods of transporting your goods, then it might even seem redundant to purchase both policies. Unfortunately, if you want protection on both, then you need to have both Ocean Marine Insurance and Commercial Inland Marine Insurance. A Commercial Inland Marine policy doesn’t just protect the goods that are currently in transit. It protects the goods even while they are not moving during the shipping process and sometimes during the delivery process and beyond.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cargo, for insurance purposes, means the product or goods that you are transporting from one place to another. This could be anything from food to liquid to paper products.
An Inland Marine insurance policy will be separate from General Liability insurance. While it may be added to a package policy, it is often a separate policy.
An Equipment Floater is a type of Inland Marine insurance policy. An easy way to understand what Inland Marine insurance covers is to think of it as a policy for things that are mobile. This includes equipment, whether for a construction company or a farm.