While the vast majority of payloads arrive safely and securely, smart shippers always carry insurance on their cargo, whether it’s being transported in a shipping container by truck, train, ship, or a combination of the three.
Unfortunately, many individuals have termed it “grudge insurance,” since they grudgingly purchase the protection. Without insurance, you’ll be left with a huge loss and no recompense if a disaster or accident occurs.
Potential Problems
Cargo containers are transported on trucks, by rail, and on ocean-going vessels. One of the reasons for using a shipping container is to protect the payload from damage due to weather considerations encompassing rain, hail, ice, and snow, to salt spray on ships. There are also natural disasters and phenomena over which there’s no control such as dense fog, tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, flooding and volcanic activity, along with sinkholes, landslides and avalanches.
Manmade Interruptions
That doesn’t even delve into infrastructure decline that can result in a crumbling dam, along with a collapsed bridge or overpass. When being transported by rail, train cars can be derailed due to defective equipment. In high seas, containers can be swept overboard. Loss due to theft can occur and shipping containers do become lost, even with technological tracking advances.
While all of those situations are rare, they represent very real situations against which shippers must be prepared by properly insuring their cargo.
Outside Influences
Cargo is subject to a variety of natural forces ranging from friction and gravity to vibrational influences and centrifugal force due to sudden starts, stops and turns. When at sea, a ship can move in 6 different directions, which significantly affects cargo containers. All that’s required is one defective tie down to cause a container disaster during any mode of transport. Insurance is an essential protection for anything being transported in a cargo container.
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