Marine Cargo Insurance. Extent of Cargo Insurance.

    Having outlined the several types of losses, attention may next be directed to a discussion of the leading kinds of marine insurance. According to customary classification, these are cargo, hull, freight and builders' risk insurance.

    Extent of Cargo Insurance. As contrasted with the other types, cargo insurance is by far the most important as regards volume and the number of interests involved. Not only does the short duration of the risk, usually limited only to the voyage, insure a frequent turnover of the underwriter's capital, but a single vessel may have aboard several hundred cargo interests, whereas the vessel, and usually also the freight, represents but one. Returns for 1918 clearly show that American companies derive by far the largest share of their business from cargo insurance, and many reported that they do not emphasize hull insurance. Of sixty-three American companies, four transacted no hull and freight insurance at all; twelve derived less than ten per cent of their total marine income from hull and freight insurance; nineteen less than fifteen per cent; twenty-four less than twenty per cent; and twenty-eight (nearly one-half the total number) less than thirty-three per cent. Almost all of these companies Deceived nearly all of the balance of their marine premium income (builders' risk premiums constituting a very small portion) from cargo insurance. Approximately the same situation was revealed by the reports furnished by the American branch offices of foreign admitted companies.

     Duration of the Protection on a Given Shipment. Ordinarily the underwriter becomes liable as soon as the goods are loaded on board the vessel and continues so until the goods are safely landed. Deviation, however, is permitted to the extent that the vessel may proceed to, and stay at, any ports or places if obliged to do so by stress of weather, or other unavoidable accident. By endorsement the underwriter's liability is often made to commence from the delivery on dock, or from some place in the interior, until delivered in the insured's warehouse or other place of storage at destination. The warehouse to warehouse clause, already referred to, represents the broadest coverage since it protects the goods from the warehouse at the initial point of shipment to delivery at the warehouse at destination. By special endorsement the underwriter's liability may also extend to the risk of lighterage to and from the vessel.