On-site property insurance protects goods at the place of risk – a load sitting in a vehicle is a different animal altogether. Anyone who transports goods regularly should understand the three layers: on-site cover, cargo insurance, and carrier liability.
- Property insurance applies on the premises – goods on the road are typically not included.
- Protecting your own goods in transit is a matter for (domestic) cargo insurance.
- The carrier's liability is limited: it's far from covering every loss, and weight-based limits apply.
The three layers
First layer: on-site property insurance – protects goods sitting in the warehouse or plant. Second layer: cargo insurance – protects your own goods on the road, from loading to unloading, typically along with the loading operations themselves. Third layer: carrier liability insurance – this doesn't belong to the owner of the goods but to the carrier, and it only settles when, and to the extent that, the carrier is liable for the loss.
Why isn't carrier liability enough?
For international carriage, conventions set a weight-based liability limit (the CMR, for road transport); for domestic carriage, the rules of the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.) and the carrier's general terms and conditions decide – the extent of the limit varies by carrier and by contract. There are situations – an unavoidable cause, a packaging defect – where the carrier bears no liability at all. For a light but valuable load (electronics, instruments), the weight-based limit may return only a fraction of the loss. For anyone moving valuable goods, their own cargo insurance is the real protection – carrier liability is only a supplementary chance.
Who should think through what?
Anyone who transports rarely, and low values, should first clarify whether the on-site policy provides any limited cover in transit (typically within a narrow scope). Anyone who moves goods regularly – with their own vehicle or through a carrier – needs to treat cargo insurance as a question in its own right, whether through an annual framework agreement or a policy per shipment. Insurance for company vehicles is again a separate area: flotta.biz, while the article on vehicles on the premises covers vehicles parked on site.
During the survey, it's also worth tracing the goods' route: from where to where, at what value, who's carrying it – this is what reveals whether the second layer is needed.
Loading is the boundary between the two worlds: the wording precisely sets out where on-site cover ends and transit cover begins – typically when loading starts. Damage during loading carried out in your own yard with your own forklift is therefore a typical borderline question: when requesting a quote, it's worth asking which cover handles it.
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