Why insure your cargo (and how the cost is calculated)

Insure your cargo, and don't rely on the carrier to make you whole. Cargo insurance covers the full value of your goods against loss or damage in transit for a small premium — typically a fraction of a percent of the value you're protecting. Without it, a carrier's legal liability is capped at a token amount that rarely comes close to what your goods are worth, and collecting even that is slow and uncertain.

You can add insurance when you request cargo insurance in the portal, or ask your Prime Freight team to add it when you book.

If something goes wrong and you have no insurance, your only route is a claim against the carrier — and carrier liability is limited by international convention, not by what your cargo is worth:

• Air freight is capped at roughly a fixed amount per kilogram of the affected cargo.

• Ocean freight is capped at roughly a fixed amount per package or "customary freight unit" — which can mean anything from a single pallet to a whole container.

Those limits are almost always far below the real value of your goods. Worse, carriers aren't liable at all in several common situations — including general average (where every shipper on a vessel shares the cost of a loss) and many "acts of God." Even when the carrier is at fault, filing a freight claim is slow, document-heavy, and has no guaranteed outcome.

Relying on carrier liability only makes sense if your shipment's value is very low and you can comfortably absorb a total loss.

A proper policy is "All Risk" cover — it protects against physical loss or damage from most external causes during the journey, rather than a short list of named perils. When you insure through us, we can also extend the cover to include your freight cost, so you're not out of pocket for shipping a shipment that never arrives.

One thing insurance does not cover is consequential loss — lost sales, missed deadlines, or downstream costs caused by a delayed or damaged shipment. Cargo insurance restores the value of the goods and the freight, not the business impact.

Your premium is a percentage of the Total Insured Value (TIV) of the shipment. TIV is the amount you're protecting, and it's normally built up as:

TIV = commercial value of the goods + freight cost + a standard uplift

The uplift (often around 10%) covers incidental costs and the inconvenience of a loss, and is a common insurance convention.

The premium rate itself is small — a fraction of a percent of TIV — and can vary with the commodity, packing, route, and mode. Because the rate is low, insuring at the point of quoting is inexpensive relative to the peace of mind it buys.

Say your goods are worth $40,000 and freight is $3,000.

• TIV = $40,000 + $3,000 + 10% uplift = $47,300

• At a sample rate of 0.4% of TIV, the premium ≈ $189.

For under $200 you protect the entire $47,300 — versus a carrier-liability payout that might be a few hundred dollars for the same loss.

You can insure in two ways:

• Per shipment. Add cover to a single booking. This is the simplest option and is ideal if you ship occasionally or want to insure only certain high-value loads. Add it when you request cargo insurance in the portal or at quote time — see Add-ons at quote time: insurance, brokerage & bonds.

• Annual (open) policy. If you ship regularly, an annual policy automatically covers all your shipments up to agreed limits, so you don't have to remember to insure each one. It's usually more economical per shipment and closes the gap where an uninsured load slips through.

If you already carry your own policy, you can use it instead — see Using your own cargo insurance.

The easiest and cheapest time to insure is when you're getting your freight quote or booking, because cover is confirmed before your goods are loaded. Add it in the portal when you request cargo insurance, or tell your Prime Freight team and they'll include it. If the worst happens, see How a cargo claim pays out.

• Using your own cargo insurance

• How a cargo claim pays out

• Request cargo insurance in the portal

• Add-ons at quote time: insurance, brokerage & bonds