Marine Insurance

Marine insurance around your fixture

Bulkargo is a shipbroker, not an underwriter. We coordinate marine cover through specialist insurers and Protection and Indemnity (P&I) clubs, and we make sure it fits the fixture we arrange for you. The cover that protects a cargo at sea is not bought in one place. It is spread across several markets, and the charter party decides who is responsible for which part. Our role is to sit between you and the insurance market, place the cover that is yours to place, and confirm that everything else lines up before the cargo loads.

For a charterer or shipper, the cover that matters most is on the cargo itself. The vessel’s hull and the owner’s liabilities are the owner’s concern. But the two have to agree: the insured value, the clauses, and the war-risk position all have to match the charter terms, or a claim can fall into the gap between them. That reconciliation is the work, and it is the reason cover belongs in the fixture conversation rather than after it. Here is who carries what.

Marine cargo insurance (what we place)

Marine cargo insurance is the one line that is squarely the cargo interest’s to buy, and it is the line we place directly. Cover is written on the Institute Cargo Clauses, issued by the Lloyd’s Market Association and the International Underwriting Association. Clause (A) is all-risks, the widest cover. Clauses (B) and (C) are named-perils cover, with (C) the narrowest. Under the CIF and CIP Incoterms, the minimum a seller has to provide is Clause (C), so for valuable or fragile cargo most buyers move up to (A).

The standard insured value is the cost, insurance and freight (CIF) price plus 10 percent. The extra 10 percent covers the buyer’s expected profit and incidental costs, so a total loss leaves you whole rather than merely repaid. Where a vessel incurs a sacrifice or extraordinary expense for the common safety, the loss is shared between ship and cargo under general average, settled on the York-Antwerp Rules. A cargo policy responds to your general average contribution, which is why placing cover before loading matters.

Typically covered on all-risks Institute Cargo Clauses (A):

• Physical loss of or damage to the goods in transit
• General average contributions and salvage charges
• Theft and pilferage
• Fire, and the perils of the sea
• Jettison and washing overboard

Typically excluded unless cover is separately arranged:

• Ordinary wear, tear and leakage
• Inherent vice or the nature of the goods themselves
• Insufficient or improper packing
• War, strikes, riots and civil commotion, which are placed under separate war and strikes clauses
• Deliberate or wilful misconduct of the insured

These are the usual positions. The exact terms of any policy are set by the insurer, which is why we read the cover against your cargo and route rather than assume it.

How cover meets the charter party

The charter party allocates risk before any policy is bought, and good cover follows that allocation rather than fighting it. The insurance clause in the charter sets out what each side must hold. The owner carries hull and machinery on the vessel and Protection and Indemnity through a club for third-party liabilities. The charterer carries cover on the cargo where it owns the goods, and charterer’s liability cover for its own exposures. When these are placed in isolation, they can leave gaps; when they are read together, they interlock.

War risk is the clearest example. When a voyage crosses an area listed for war risk, the owner’s underwriters levy an additional premium. Under the BIMCO war-risk clauses, CONWARTIME for time charters and VOYWAR for voyage charters, both revised in 2025, that additional premium is normally for the charterer’s account. A route through a listed area can therefore add a cost that has nothing to do with the freight rate, and it is far cheaper to know about it before fixing than to argue about it afterward. We flag exposed routes at the negotiation stage so the figure is on the table from the start.

General average works the same way. If the master declares general average, every interest in the adventure contributes in proportion to its saved value, and the cargo’s contribution falls on the cargo policy. The practical point is that the cargo cover, the hull cover, and the charter terms all have to describe the same voyage in the same way. Reconciling them is the part of the job a generalist forwarder tends to skip. Send us the cargo and route and we will scope the cover alongside the fixture.

How we coordinate your cover

What clients ask