Carriers' Liability Insurances

A carriers' liability insurance provides coverage for your liability for physical loss or damage to customers' cargo which you handle on the basis of a transportation contract (freight, forwarding or warehousing contract) in compliance with legal provisions (e.g. the German Commercial Code (HGB), CMR (Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road), Montreal Convention, Warsaw Convention, legal requirements of other countries, etc). Specific liability provisions which you contractually agree with your customers may possibly be covered in coordination and agreement with the underwriter. 

Every freight forwarder, carrier or warehousing company needs a carriers' liability insurance, because without valid and adequate insurance protection they would, in practice, not receive any transportation orders. If you take out a carriers' liability insurance, you can also refer on the General German Freight Forwarding Terms and Conditions (ADSp) and the limits of liability as contained therein. These limits of liablity can secure a company's survival, this is particularly true for warehouse keepers, as they could otherwise be faced with unlimited liability in the case of loss. However, in accordance with Article 7 a of the German Road Haulage Act (GüKG) there is a legal obligation to insure for the carrier who is engaged in the commercial road haulage sector and who transports goods within Germany.

There is no straightforward answer to this question. Usually, we work on the basis of vehicle-related or sales-related premiums; the amount of premium or premium rate varies according to certain factors (such as the insured risk, territory covered by the policy, amount of insurance cover, size of vehicle fleet and turnover etc).