Cargo Insurance

General Average: A Little-Known but Costly Risk General Average (GA) is an overlooked and poorly understood risk that has significant consequences for cargo owners with shipments that move via ocean vessel. A General Average loss includes possible damage to a shipper’s cargo, delay to the shipment, and additional costs associated specifically with a GA incident. Complicating the matter further, the shipping line that declares the GA has the right to hold the shipper’s goods until acceptable security is posted on their behalf. Shipper’s interest cargo insurance can mitigate all of these expenses and complications. So what exactly does the term […]

Written by Jacob Fisher and Nathaniel Saylor of Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary, P.C. International forwarders often enjoy a significant advantage over entities that arrange for domestic transportation in that international forwarders are able to perform a larger amount of their services pursuant to their standard terms and conditions, whereas domestic providers are often required to sign onerous contracts drafted by their customers. Given that reliance on standard terms, the international forwarder is often at a loss when approached by a customer that demands that the forwarder sign a “master services” or similar type of contract covering the forwarder’s services as, invariably, that […]

The FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rule on Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food is now fully final, with all impacted parties having to comply by April 6. The FSMA is meant to advance the FDA’s efforts to protect foods from farm to table by keeping them safe from contamination during transportation. The rule establishes requirements for shippers, loaders, carriers by motor or rail vehicle, and receivers and brokers involved in transporting human and animal food to use sanitary practices to ensure the safety of that food. Many carriers that fall under this ruling have already been following […]

The most recent figures from the Labor Department shows that the warehousing and storage sector geared up in November for the holiday season, adding 8,100 jobs to pick, pack and ship e-commerce orders. This number reflects the most jobs the sector has added in a single month since December 2015, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The holiday job surge marks the eight straight month of expansion in the logistics sector as increasingly more people are purchasing goods on-line from Amazon and others. In fact, according to Adobe Systems Inc., shoppers spent a record $6.59 billion […]

The race to get autonomous vehicles and vessels on the road and on our waterways is set to impact the way the logistics industry operates. While the reality of self-driving vehicles and vessels in still in the distant future, those throughout the logistics supply chain should be taking a close look at what is taking place and preparing for that day. Test runs have already been conducted or are being planned in the autonomous space. For example, Anheuser-Bush conducted a 120-mile driverless “beer run” last year between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. Otto, the company behind the self-driving truck, expects […]

Cargo owners often think that transporting goods by water as more perilous than shipping freight by land. Ocean travel covers thousands of miles over several weeks versus land distances, which are typically measured in hundreds of miles and days. The assumption, therefore, is that the road comes with fewer hazards due to the shorter transits. But making this assumption can be costly for those that don’t properly insure cargo – whether by water or land. When Cargo Insurance is Used Look at a recent insurance claim that involved a 900-mile journey from Rhode Island to a buyer’s warehouse outside Chicago […]