Glos­sary of Ocean Cargo Insur­ance Terms

ALL OTHER PER­ILS & MIS­FOR­TUNES:
Phrase in Cargo pol­icy mean­ing per­ils of the same nature as those described specif­i­cally in the Per­ils clause.

ASSAIL­ING THIEVES:
Forcible tak­ing of prop­erty but not sneak thiev­ery.

AVER­AGE:
Any par­tial loss or dam­age, due to insured per­ils.

AVER­AGE AGREE­MENT:
Doc­u­ment signed by cargo own­ers by terms of which they agree to pay any Gen­eral
Aver­age con­tri­bu­tion prop­erly due so that cargo may be released after a Gen­eral
Aver­age loss has occurred.

AVER­AGE CLAUSES:
Clauses in Cargo pol­icy that deter­mine the amount of Par­tic­u­lar Aver­age loss recov­ery.

AVER­AGE IRRE­SPEC­TIVE OF PER­CENT­AGE:
Broad­est “with aver­age” clause. Losses by insured per­ils are paid regard­less of per­cent­age.

BAR­RA­TRY:
Fraud­u­lent, crim­i­nal, or wrong­ful act by ship’s cap­tain or crew which causes loss or dam­age to the ship or cargo.



BILL OF LAD­ING:
Con­tract of car­riage between ship­per and steamship com­pany which is the ship own­ers receipt for the goods and is the doc­u­ment of title to them.

CARGO WAR RISK POL­ICY:
A sep­a­rate Cargo pol­icy cov­er­ing cargo while water­borne only (except at trans­ship­ping point, which may be on land or water). Insures against war risks.

CER­TIFI­CATE OF INSUR­ANCE OR SPE­CIAL POL­ICY:
A doc­u­ment pre­pared by the insured, the pro­ducer, or the insur­ance com­pany to pro­vide evi­dence of insur­ance to the buyer or bank for an export/​import ship­ment. The cer­tifi­cate con­tains an abstract of the more impor­tant con­di­tions in the pol­icy.

CON­SIGNEE:
Indi­vid­ual or com­pany to whom cargo is shipped or con­signed.

CTL (Con­struc­tive Total Loss):
An instance in which the cost of recov­er­ing and/​or repair­ing dam­aged goods would, when recov­ered or repaired, exceed the insured value.

DEC­LA­RA­TION:
Form filled out bv assured and sent to the insur­ance comr)anv when rer)ortina

DEVI­A­TION:
A vessel’s going to some other point or tak­ing some course other than that described in the Bill of Lad­ing.

FPAAC (Free of Par­tic­u­lar Aver­age, Amer­i­can Con­di­tions):
Aver­age clause that lim­its recov­ery of par­tial losses under the Per­ils clause to those losses directly result­ing from fire, strand­ing, sink­ing, or col­li­sion of the ves­sel.

FPAEC (Free of Par­tic­u­lar Aver­age, Eng­lish Con­di­tions):
Same as FPAAC except that par­tial losses under the Per­ils clause are fully recover-​able if the ves­sel has been stranded, sunk, burned, been on fire, or in col­li­sion, with­out requir­ing that the dam­age actu­ally be caused by one of these per­ils.

GEN­ER­ALAV­ER­AGE:
Loss result­ing from a vol­un­tary sac­ri­fice of any part of the ves­sel or cargo, or an expen­di­ture to safe­guard the ves­sel and the rest of the cargo. When such a loss occurs, it is paid on a pro rata basis by the ship owner and all cargo own­ers.

INCH­MA­REE CLAUSE:
(So-​called for a famous legal deci­sion involv­ing a ves­sel of that name.) Cov­ers losses result­ing from a latent defect in the vessel’s hull or machin­ery and losses result­ing from errors in nav­i­ga­tion or man­age­ment of the ves­sel by the mas­ter or crew.

INVOICE:
Doc­u­ment which shows the terms of sale; con­tains full descrip­tion of goods, sale price, charges, dis­counts, etc.

INSURED VALUE:
Usu­ally com­puted by adding the invoice cost, guar­an­teed freight, other costs, and insur­ance pre­mium plus a per­cent­age, com­monly 10%. This usu­ally rep­re­sents landed value.

JET­TI­SON:
Vol­un­tary dump­ing either of cargo or of ship’s mate­r­ial or stores over­board, to pro­tect other prop­erty from a com­mon dan­ger.



LANDED VALUE:
Whole­sale mar­ket value at des­ti­na­tion on final day of dis­charge.

MARINE EXTEN­SION CLAUSE:
Cargo pol­icy clause that con­tin­ues cov­er­age on goods dur­ing devi­a­tion, delay, re-​shipment, and trans­ship­ment, or any other vari­a­tion in nor­mal tran­sit beyond the assured’s con­trol.

MARINE SUR­VEYOR:
Spe­cial­ist who deter­mines the nature, extent and cause of loss and/​or dam­age.

MAS­TEWS PROTEST:
Sworn state­ment by cap­tain describ­ing any unusual hap­pen­ing dur­ing the voy­age.

PAR­TIC­U­LAR AVER­AGE:
Par­tial loss sus­tained by goods insured.

PER­ILS OF THE SEA:
Haz­ards from nat­ural forces in or about nav­i­ga­ble waters (wind­storm, rough weather, etc., but not fire, explo­sion, etc., which are per­ils on the sea).

TERMS OF SALE:
The fol­low­ing are brief descrip­tions of the more com­mon Terms of Sale (fully defined in the “Amer­i­can For­eign Trade Def­i­n­i­tions 1941″), set­ting forth the oblig­a­tions of the seller and buyer.

(a) FOB (Free on Board)
The seller assumes charges and risk for the goods until they are loaded on board a named car­rier at a named point, which may be an inland point or a port. The buyer is respon­si­ble for any loss or dam­age after load­ing on board the car­rier. The buyer should spec­ify FOB to con­trol insur­ance with­out rely­ing on the “other fel­low”

(b) FAS (Free Along­side)
The seller assumes charges and risk until the goods are deliv­ered along­side the ves­sel. Loss or dam­age from along­side the ves­sel is the respon­si­bil­ity of the buyer.

© C&F (Cost and Freight)
The seller assumes respon­si­bil­ity for charges and for loss or dam­age until the goods enter the car­riees cus­tody or are loaded on board the ves­sel. The buyer is respon­si­ble for loss or dam­age at this point.

(d) CIF (Cost, Insur­ance, and Freight)
The seller’s price includes cost of the goods, Marine insur­ance, and all trans­porta­tion charges to the named des­ti­na­tion point. Seller also pro­vides War Risk insur­ance as obtain­able in his or her mar­ket at the time of ship­ment, at buyer’s expense (unless seller has agreed that buyer pro­vides War Risk insur­ance). Seller should spec­ify CIF to main­tain max­i­mum con­trol of the ship­ment until the trans­ac­tion has been com­pleted.

TERMS OR METH­ODS OF PAY­MENT:
If the insured is not paid for any rea­son, he/​she must dis­pose of the goods and, there­fore, still has an insur­able inter­est. Fol­low­ing are the more com­mon Terms or Meth­ods of Pay­ment:

(a) Col­lec­tion by Draft
The seller bears the risk until he/​she is paid. If for some rea­son, the buyer does not accept the ship­ment, the seller has the prob­lem of dis­pos­ing of the goods. By arrang­ing the insur­ance, the seller can min­i­mize the risk of loss.

(b) Open Account
When sales are made on an open account, the seller has finan­cial risk sim­i­lar to col­lect­ing by draft. Here again, the seller should attempt to arrange the insur­ance.

© Let­ter of Credit
In this pro­ce­dure, the buyer estab­lishes credit in U.S. money through his or her bank in favor of the seller. If the seller col­lects by this means, the let­ter of credit often stip­u­lates that he/​she arrange the insur­ance.

VAL­U­A­TION CLAUSE:
Pro­vides basis for deter­min­ing insured value of a ship­ment under the Open Cargo pol­icy.

WAR RISK:
Insur­ance against loss or dam­age to prop­erty as a result of war risks.

WARE­HOUSE TO WARE­HOUSE: (Door to Door)
An export/​import pol­icy clause that pro­vides pro­tec­tion from the shipper’s ware-​house and dur­ing ordi­nary course of tran­sit to the consignee’s warehouse.