So you think you’re fully covered, but then…
You have just purchased a shiny new Bobcat when the first day on the jobsite, one of your employees takes it on a side hill and the Bobcat tumbles down. After two to three rolls, your equipment is in a heap at the bottom of the hill and your employee is hurt too. Not a week’s gone by since the new Bobcat you ordered has arrived and it’s finally on its way to its first job site. As the day goes on, you hum happily to yourself, thinking of the money rolling in from all the new jobs you can take when you get the call: there’s been an accident.
One of your employees had been taking the new machine on a hill, misjudging the steepness and the bobcat’s center of gravity. The brand new and very expensive piece of equipment was now at the bottom of the ravine, and your employee managed to injure himself in the process. After a week of phone calls, your insurance company tells you that the equipment policy you bought with the bobcat covers your property only. To have equipment covered anywhere, not just a specified location, you need a more transit-friendly policy.
That’s where Inland Marine Insurance comes into play. Inland marine coverage is a specialized type of insurance that provides coverage for items like products, materials and construction equipment during transit overland by train or truck. Inland marine coverage is essential for contractor’s equipment, and it also applies if your equipment is in transit overland.
What Inland Marine Insurance Covers
Inland marine insurance provides insurance coverage for items that are excluded from typical property coverage in a standard business owners policy. This includes anything from medical and scientific equipment to construction equipment such as excavators, bobcats and backhoes.
This policy is created specifically for items that are 1. Not covered under the usual small business insurance for property and 2. Consistently being moved overland to customers or job sites. As such, the policy covers the usual theft, fire, weather, and water damage that’s usually covered under business insurance, while also protecting you from mysterious disappearances of freight and accidental drop and damage.
Who benefits from Inland Marine Insurance
The primary benefactors of inland marine policies are companies that frequently either transport or ship higher-value equipment. These high value products or materials are frequently purposefully excluded from business owners policies due to the risks associated with transit.
Let’s say you’re a company who ships out servers to various firms all over the United States. With each server representing a high actual cash value, your business owner’s policy will not extend to cover these items while they’re being shipped to clients. This means that, if your container is broken into and the servers are stolen, or if the container catches fire during transit, you can face a total loss of all the materials contained within.
Another example of a firm that would benefit from inland marine policies would be a firm that rents out construction equipment to contractors and handles the transportation to the client’s job site. To provide an illustration as to why it’s important, we can imagine that during transit, something unexpected occurs on the road and the truck carrying your high-value construction equipment is involved in an accident. This accident causes the truck to make an unexpected movement or turn that causes your goods to be tossed onto the road, heavily damaging it to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.
Under normal business owners insurance, these items are explicitly excluded, so if you do not have the proper coverage, this event would represent another total loss for your business. For highly mobile goods such as construction equipment, or companies who ship a lot of materials with high ticket values, inland marine coverage is absolutely necessary.
For more information on the right coverage your business may need, SWAN Insurance is here to help. Contact us today at (858) 381-3108 or email info@swan-ins.com
