Saving Money on Your Cargo Insurance

    Writing any property and casualty insurance in Miami is always going to be a little trickier than other parts of the United States. Miami has a higher exposure to natural and human hazards including, but not limited to, hurricanes, tornadoes, theft, vandalism and fire. This makes the cost of insurance, and therefore, the cost of doing Business in Miami a little tougher. At ALC Risk Soltuions, we focus on writing insurance for niche markets. We have an agent that focuses on social services and another on health services and another on aviation risks. I specialize in writing insurance for the technology and the marine industry. A major part of the marine industry is Cargo Insurance. ALC Risk Soltuions is also an independent agency. This means that we do not have one single insurance company that we go to when we are looking to write your Cargo Insurance Policy, we go to many different companies that we know have specialized departments for dealing with Cargo Insurance.

    When you are looking at Cargo Insurance the main thing to be concerned about is quality of the company. If the agent does not provide you with the A.M. Best rating you can find it by going to www.ambest.com. Another concern company's face regarding cargo insurance is the cost. But, this is where you have to be careful. You should look at the upfront premium, but more importantly, you should be looking at the rate, and whether the policy is auditable or flat. An "Auditable" policy means that at the end of the year the company will ask you for a report of all of the shipments you made last year. If you went over what you projected, they will charge you additional premium based on the rate that was quoted.

    For example, you project on your application you are going to ship $10,000,000 worth of computers from Miami to Columbia. They give you a rate of $0.25 per $100 shipped. Upfront you are charged a premium which is minimum and deposit of $25,000. At the end of the year, you did better than expected, and you shipped $15,000,000. The extra $5,000,000 will be charged at a rate of $0.25 per $100. You know owe an additional premium of $12,500.

    If you had projected that you would've shipped $15,000,000, your rate might have been $0.20 per $100. This would've been a minimum and deposit of $30,000 and you would've saved $7,500 that year.

    Non-auditable policies are harder to find, however, at ALC Risk Soltuions, we do have access to a market that is writing Flat, or Non-auditable policies. However, these policies are only for companies which are shipping one type of good. So, if you are only shipping fitness equipment, or only shipping automobile parts, or only shipping kitchen appliances, ect, you may qualify for a Flat policy. This means that if you project $10,000,000 and ship $15,000,000 you do not get hit with an audit, you just have to adjust your policy accordingly next year.

    There are many other ways to save money on your Cargo Insurance policy. For a free consultation with me, Andrew Cohn of ALC Risk Soltuions in Miami, FL, please email me acohn@alcrisk.com or call (786) 382-6833. ALC Risk Soltuions is an independent insurance agency specializing in writing insurance for niche industries including technology, marine, cargo, manufacturing, health services, non-profits, social services and the food industry.