lol....that's because nobody wants to admit they know me.

 

If you ever need to up your cargo insurance check with Lloyd's of London. They will write higher levels of insurance. I had something once where I needed $1MM in cargo. Lloyd's would write it. Your insurance agent should be able to write it through them.

 

A little off topic, perhaps, but I hauled a load about a month ago that had me wondering about cargo insurance. It was three military communications trailers to Fort Hood, TX. The shipper told me that each of the trailers sold for about $300,000. When I got to the base in Texas, I relayed this info to the contractor in charge of receiving the equipment. He snickered and said, "Try $1,000,000 apiece."

Either way, I was hauling property far in excess of my cargo insurance limits ($100k) but the broker on the load never asked for extra coverage. I realize that if I had been in an accident and the equipment sustained damage that it is unlikely that it would have been a total loss unless they caught fire. But still, it made me uneasy. What would have happened in the event of an accident? I don't think it would have taken much damage for the value of it to exceed my coverage.

 

I have had equipment and other types of freight which far exceeded the limits of my cargo insurance. If all of these shippers wanted you to have sufficient insurance to cover their cargo they would insist that you have it. The problem comes in when you quote them the rate. $1MM extra cargo insurance would cost me about $3,600 just to cover a single shipper. Rates could vary according to the type of freight and where you plan on running. Sometimes the extra cost isn't worth it. Shippers would need to pay higher rates to make it worthwhile for the carrier.

 

You don't need the extra insurance for the whole year. When I bumped mine up to $500,000 once it was $18.00 per $100,000 for one week.

 

The $1MM coverage that I was looking at was for the year. I had a shipper that I was considering doing business and it would have been a regular gig.