Insuring Marine Cargo Against Fraudulent Documentation

Originally published by Risk Management, March 2018

 As technological innovation continues to unfold at a torrid clip, the challenges of protecting against theft and fraud have never been greater. Commercial shipping, for example, faces a new and daunting set of technological expo­sures that can take the form of hacking of a vessel's navigational systems, email-induced surrenders of cargo, and the computer-enabled falsification of shipping documents, just to name a few.

In the case of cargo loss due to fraudulent shipping docu­ments, marine cargo insurance is available for many potential loss scenarios. Often, an effective form of marine cargo insur­ance will contain an express insuring agreement for loss or damage to insured goods caused by the receipt of fraudulent bills of lading (bills of lading are routinely used to document title and receipt of goods by a carrier or shipper's agent).