Transit Insurance
Interfreight is able to refer its clients to reliable providers of transit cover underwriters (a form of short-term insurance), but experience has shown that most clients prefer to arrange their own transit cover. However, due to changes in legislation in the United Kingdom, Interfreight UK is able to arrange transit insurance for its clients electronically.
Shipping and the creation of insurance
It is interesting to note that modern short-term insurance originated in shipping insurance practiced by Chinese and Babylonian traders. Chinese merchants travelling treacherous river rapids would redistribute their wares across many vessels to limit the losses incurred by traders if a single vessel capsized. The Babylonians developed a system which was recorded in the famous Code of Hammurabi, c. 1750 BC, and practiced by early Mediterranean sailing merchants. If a merchant received a loan to fund his shipment, he would pay the lender an additional sum in exchange for the lender's guarantee to cancel the loan should the shipment be stolen.
The people of Rhodes invented the concept of the 'general average'. Merchants whose goods were being shipped together would pay a proportionally divided premium that would be used to reimburse any merchant whose goods were thrown overboard during a storm or if a vessel sank.
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, London's growing importance as a centre for trade increased demand for marine insurance. In the late 1680s, Mr. Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house that became popular with ship owners, merchants, and ships’ captains, and therefore a reliable source of the latest shipping news. It became the meeting place for people who wanted to insure cargoes and ships, and those willing to underwrite such ventures. Today, Lloyd's of London remains the leading market for marine and other specialist types of insurance.
Sources: Santam Limited, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance
