Whether you are a trucker, a trucking company owner or both, your job is centered around transportation. However, when you take any type of cargo, equipment or other property into your care, you must take responsibility for it. All the same, because you cannot prevent every accident that might occur, you still need to protect your cargo with strong insurance.
All truckers can benefit from a unique type of coverage called inland marine insurance. It is coverage that makes sure that the property in your care has coverage while it is in transport, and whether it belongs to you or to someone else.
What is Inland Marine Insurance?
Inland marine insurance was developed at a time when most of America’s shipping was done over waterways—hence why the word marine is included in the title.
However, as America’s shipping has transferred to railroads, roadways and the air, this coverage has gone with it. Today, inland marine insurance can help commercial shippers, truckers included, insure the items they carry, and they can use it to compensate the cargo’s owner should something damage or destroy the items in question. Consider just a few of the advantages of this coverage.
Inland Marine Insurance Protects Your Liability
Truckers of course try to drive safely and handle their cargo with care. However, you can’t guarantee that you won’t have an accident, or that your truck won’t get stolen or damaged by a fire. In any case, the damage to your cargo could still be the same, and the cargo’s owner could expect you to pay for it. As a result, you need the benefits provided by inland marine insurance to help you make this remittance. That way, you won’t have to pay for these losses yourself.
Coverage Protects Items Even When You Are Not Driving
An inland marine policy can cover your truck’s cargo both while you are actively driving and when you are doing other tasks. After all, plenty of hazards could damage items that are not in transit:
- If you store items in a warehouse, something might happen to them there.
- Cargo might sustain damage when you are loading or unloading it.
- An employee of your company might steal cargo.
In any of these cases, the loss to the owner could be the same. Therefore, inland marine insurance will create a way for you to still provide them with adequate compensation.
It is for More Than Someone Else’s Cargo
Inland marine insurance doesn’t just cover someone else’s belongings. It can also insure a business’s specialty equipment when it is transported off its company premises. For example, if your business develops electronic equipment that it provides to others, this coverage can protect these items both when they are in transport and when they are left at the user’s site.
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