Build your cargo and marine file. Goods first, paperwork after.
Shipper, carrier, forwarder, warehouse, marine trade or equipment mover – the first question sorts the path, and everything after it speaks your language: the goods, the routes, the values, the paper. The finished file appears in plain words before anything is sent, and sending stays in your hands.
Look it over the way you would a manifest. Fix anything that reads wrong, then move it to the form and say how the reply should reach you.
What a complete cargo file includes.
Cargo cover gets priced on specifics the way freight gets priced on weight. This is the set that lets the desk quote on the first pass.
The goods, named
Commodity first, always. Lumber, electronics, frozen food and machinery are four different policies wearing the same word.
Your role in the move
Owning the goods, carrying them, arranging the move or storing them are four different liabilities. The cover is written around which one is yours.
The routes and the modes
Where things travel and how – ocean, air, truck, rail – and the radius if you are the one hauling. Each mode carries its own risks and its own paperwork.
Values, two ways
A typical shipment and the year’s total, or the worst full load if you carry. Limits are set by the biggest day, not the average one.
The terms of sale
Whose loss is it mid-ocean? Your sale terms already answer that, and plenty of shippers meet the answer for the first time after something sinks.
The paper trail
Bills of lading in your name, contracts demanding limits, letters of credit that require cover. The paper decides obligations before any policy does.
Where goods rest
Warehouses between legs, third-party storage, your own floor. Transit cover has edges, and goods standing still is where they usually are.
The history, straight
Claims in five years, and any decline or cancellation. Both are workable here. Both work better said first.
Annual policy or per shipment, motor truck cargo, warehouse legal liability, forwarders liability, hull – which shapes fit your file is what the quote comes back showing, priced piece by piece.
The desk that already speaks freight.
This file goes to people who place cargo and marine risks through specialist markets and will say early if yours belongs with a dedicated marine house instead. The reply lands the next business day, and usually the same day, in whichever form you choose on the form below.