You need insurance for many aspects of import and export, from liability, to cargo to credit insurance.
Here are some of the main solutions we offer for importers and exporters:
Commercial general liability « CGL »
Commercial General Liability (CGL) is the most well-known coverage and most purchased policy issued to businesses to protect them from liability claims resulting from bodily injury and property damage arising from their operations, products or completed operations as well as advertising and personal injury (PI). Liability coverage is intended to protect your business against both legal costs and any claim payments for which you are ultimately held legally responsible.
Property insurance
Whether you are renting a commercial space, operating in a building you own or working from home, commercial property insurance provides protection against loss or damage because of events such as a fire, theft, vandalism, and other perils. This coverage protects against damage to your company’s physical assets, inside and out, such as buildings, inventory, equipment, furniture, and machinery, as well as exterior fixtures like outdoor signs, fences, landscaping, and debris removal.
Business interruption coverage
This coverage applies when the commercial property is damaged due to events such as fire, water damage or other covered perils resulting in the lack of access in or to your business premises because of the damage incurred. Business interruption coverage will compensate for the loss of income and other expenses such as rents, relocation cost, employee wages and more. This policy provides insurance for the loss of income securing the fact that a temporary shutdown does not turn out to be a permanent one because of a lack of income.
Equipment breakdown
Whether you are a building owner or, a tenant in a leased building, your standard property insurance covers damages to your equipment from perils such as a fire, theft, water damage, windstorm, and others. However, property insurance policies do not cover damage from causes such as mechanical failure of equipment, electrical short circuit, explosion from a boiler or other pressure vessel, change of temperature and mechanical breakdown. Coverage for these types of losses requires specific equipment breakdown coverage.
Credit insurance
An import and export company, whether small or large, should seriously consider getting credit insurance that includes coverage for export credit risk. This is your financial protection in case the foreign buyer decides not to pay you either for political or commercial reasons. This type of insurance encourages more import and export companies to take the risk of bringing in more products from other countries.
Directors and officer’s liability « D&O »
Whether you are a publicly traded corporation, a private company or non-profit organisation, D&O insurance is essential to protect the company’s directors and officers in the event that they are personally sued by employees, vendors, competitors, investors, customers, or other parties, for actual or alleged wrongful acts in managing a company. Coverage usually protects current, future and past directors and officers of a company and its subsidiaries. This coverage does not include fraudulent, criminal or intentional non-compliant acts or cases where directors obtained illegal remuneration or acted for personal profit.
Crime insurance
Employee fraud can happen in any business even the most well-administered ones. Your new or long-time employee, - even the one you never suspected -, may defraud your company for huge amounts of money. Your company may still be at risk despite the fact you are performing screening and background checks and teaching your employees on how to identify fraudulent employees. This coverage is usually excluded from a standard commercial policy and can be specifically added or issued on a separate one.
Cyber risk and privacy breach
Cyber risk insurance will protect your businesses from losses related to cyber or privacy breaches. If your company data is compromised by hackers, your computer system holding confidential information is breached, or a paper file containing personally identifiable customer information is lost, this policy could help cover the cost of remedial actions. It could also help with the costs of legal claims, substantial notification expenses, network failure, and public relations services to get your business back on track faster. The majority of cyber policies incorporate both first party coverage for expenses your firm directly suffers as cause of the breach and third party coverage apply to claims against your firm by third parties that sustained damages as a result of your actions or failure to act.
Ocean marine cargo
Whether you are looking to insure your imports or exports and regardless of the continent of origin and the means of transport (sea, air, or land), LMBF has had its own marine managers and underwriting division for over 45 years. This allows us the flexibility to offer tailored-made coverage to you at very competitive pricing. This policy covers your business against physical loss or damage for international air and sea cargo. The basic policy form may be generally extended to cover temporary storage, inland transit, war risk, strikes, riots and civil commotions.
We offer you the option to insure your goods under an ongoing contract known as an “open cargo policy”. This type of policy is personalized for clients who have a regular turnover of merchandises in transit. The policy will cover all transits that come within the scope of the insurance. Premiums are charged monthly or annually. The main advantage of this type of coverage is that the customer does not need to inform us about each shipment separately to confirm coverage. Instead, they declare shipments for a set period of time, and we adjust the needed coverage at year end. The policy is generally written on a wide basis to cover all goods and merchandise typical to the operation of the Insured. The Insured must present the Insurer with all the details of their business, including the nature of their goods, limits per conveyance, origin of voyage and final destinations.
Customs surety bond
A Customs surety bond is a contract used to guarantee that a specific obligation will be fulfilled between customs and an importer for any given import transaction. The purpose of a customs bond is to guarantee the payment of import duties and taxes.
