The carrier's Legal Liability policy is not as popular as truck insurance, health insurance or even transit insurance. I have been in the insurance industry for last 20 years dealing with recovery from transporters under subrogation rights. During this period, I came across various Carrier's Legal Liability Insurance Policies and being expert on the subject, I observed they were not protecting the transporters fully but collecting premiums from them only.

Being Recovery Agents whenever we approached to the insurer who underwrote Carrier's Legal Liability insurance for claim, they either just ignored us or demanded so many documents which were impossible to provide. In nutshell, they did not want to settle claims under Carrier's Legal Liability policy.

I personally know various transport companies which have taken Carrier's Legal Liability Insurance but still they are facing many court cases from insurance companies under subrogation rights and their insurance companies (Carrier's Legal Liability issuers) do not bother. They keep writing to their insurance companies but most of the time, there was no relief from their insurance companies.

Earlier, in Carrier's Legal Liability policy, they just cover "Loss due to fire and accident when cargo is in the custody of the carrier with certain Terms and Condition". They also required your fleet detail (Registration No of trucks) and they only cover those vehicles which were mentioned in Policy Schedule.

When, I formed my second company AK Insurance Marketing Pvt Ltd (BimaSathi) in June 2019 as an Insurance Intermediate, the first thought which came into my mind was how to provide the financial protection to our transport clients in real sense? I was well versed with two industries; one is Insurance Industry and other is transport industry. I have been working for Insurance Industry for 20 years as a leader in my segment and now I had to give my best professional services to my prospects clients in transport industry. For that I had to work hard to give solution to our clients.

In search of good insurance products for transport industry, I met many insurance companies' liability underwriters (for those who do not know about underwriter, the underwriter is a person who plays an important role in designing the insurance products). The private insurance companies were reluctant and refused straight forward to sell carriers legal liability to transport companies.

The public sector insurance companies had been issuing Carrier's Legal Liability Policy for a long but to their limited clients. I studied their liability policy and observed that they were not providing covers of those vehicles which had only third party insurance. Their policy covers only vehicles which had comprehensive insurance. when I insisted to provide covers to the vehicles having third party insurance also, they showed their inability as, they can not modify their product which they had already filed with IRDA.

The second challenge with govt insurance company product was, they put very high deductible under the policy (deductible amounts are borne by policy holders). The third challenge was generally they did not settle the claim under Carrier's Legal Liability Policy amicably and asked the claimant to go into the court of law for relief. They even did not give their professional advice to transporters how they can handle CLL claims. On my request they were ready to keep deductible as low as Rs. 10000/- per case but did not want to compromise on other terms and conditions.

In the meantime we tied up with ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co and start doing business with them in other segment like transit insurance, fire and engineering insurance and also insisted to developed a good carrier legal liability insurance product for us but that time they were reluctant to allow us to sell Carrier's Legal Liability insurance. As they were of the opinion that this segment was loss making.

In July 2021, we again approached their liability underwriter and gave detail power point presentation about Carrier's Legal Liability policy and claims management. Being expert and experienced in this segment, they allowed my company to sell this product to transport industry. Now we have designed a good product which can help transport industry a lot.

To make awareness so that transport companies can take an informed decision about carrier legal liability insurance. I have made following

Point	Govt Insurance Companies	Private Insurance Companies
Coverage	Loss due to accident or fire.	Loss due to accident, fire, short delivery, non delivery, truck hijacking, burglary, leakage & breakage
Fleet	Own Fleet (Required Reg No of fleet)	Both owned and hired vehicles
Vehicle Insurance	Vehicle having comprehensive insurance policy only	Both, comprehensive as well as Third parties insurance having vehicles are covered
ODC Cargo, Hazardous Cargo, Gases etc.	They generally do not cover ODC cargo, Hazardous cargos, chemical and gases.	They cover all cargos.
Deductible	Rs. 25000/- to 500000/- and even more	.25% of claim value, min Rs. 5000/-
Claims Settlement	They generally do not settle carrier legal liability claims amicably. First claimant has to go in the court and if any decree comes, then they reimburse the claim subject to other terms and condition of the policy.	They have flexible approach and settle most of the cases where the claim is admissible under the policy amicably.
Defence Cost	Upto 10% of claim amount with written approval on case to case basis.	They cover full defence cost with no limit with written approval.
Counsel appointment and other cost, in case court cases	Initially they do not give any advocate fee and other court expense. Once case is decided they can reimburse the same.	They immediate provide legal assistance to the carrier. You can hire your own advocate by taking written approval from the insurance company or they can provide you their own panelled advocate.
Premium	They charge premium based upon deductible and the nature of coverage of the policy	They charge premium based upon deductible and the nature of coverage of the policy. The premium can be further negotiated.
Exclusions	Infidelity of drivers and employees are excluded from the policy coverage.	Infidelity of drivers and employees are excluded from the policy coverage. The same can be covered by buying fidelity Guarantee Insurance.

Parameter	Other Agents/Brokers	BimaSathi (AK Insurance Marketing Pvt Ltd.)
Product Knowledge	This is very unique product, hence most of the agents/brokers do not have sufficient knowledge	We are handling recovery and insurance claim matters for 20 years and have a great product knowledge.
Approach	They generally do not sell Carriers Legal Liability Policy and if someone asks them for CLL then they arrange quote generally from Govt Insurance Companies	We got this product customized according to the need of our clients logistic companies and we not only sell this policy on larger level but also do marketing PAN India.
Claim Settlement	Being little or no knowledge of this product, they can not help at the time of claim.	We have a great product and claim knowledge, hence able to assist our clients from loss intimation to claim settlement.
Insurance Company	They have tie up with Govt Insurance companies for Carrier Legal Liability Policy.	We have tie up with both Govt as well as Pvt Insurance companies, hence offering wide range product.
Clientele	We can not say anything about their clientele	Our 90% clientele comes from transport and logistics industry and we know your problem better than anyone else.

If you have any query, kindly contact me directly at my mobile no. 9999682324 or send email to abad@bimasathi.in