Inland Marine Insurance

A business owner’s policy may offer some coverage for movable property, but it is often limited. Inland marine insurance provides broader and more specific coverage for goods in transit and mobile equipment, making it an essential addition for businesses with significant movable assets.

Yes, with conditions attached to how the property was left. Theft of tools, equipment, and property in transit is a core reason the coverage exists. The conditions are where claims turn: many forms require a locked, fully enclosed vehicle, some exclude theft from a vehicle left unattended overnight, and some apply a separate deductible to theft. Employee theft is excluded entirely and belongs to crime coverage. Mysterious disappearance, meaning property that is simply gone with no evidence of how, is treated differently again by different forms.

Read the valuation clause, because it decides what a claim actually pays. Many contractors equipment forms settle at actual cash value, which is replacement cost less depreciation, so an older machine returns a fraction of what a new one costs. Replacement cost is available on some programs, often only up to an age limit on the equipment. Scheduled high-value items can sometimes be written on an agreed value, which removes the argument at claim time. The difference between these three shows up on the check, not on the declarations page.

It covers the materials you are installing until the job is accepted. A contractor who buys a chiller, a switchgear line-up, or a run of cabinetry owns a real exposure between the supplier’s dock and the owner’s sign-off. That window is where property gets stolen off a site or damaged before it is ever energized. An installation floater follows those materials in transit, in temporary storage, and while being installed. It fills the seam between the supplier’s coverage and the owner’s builders risk, and on many projects it is the contract that requires it.

The things that stay put, and the things that are somebody else’s line. Buildings and permanent structures belong on commercial property. Licensed vehicles belong on commercial auto, even when they carry the equipment. Wear, gradual deterioration, and mechanical breakdown are excluded as maintenance. Employee dishonesty goes to crime coverage. Beyond that, forms differ on unattended vehicle theft, on property in the open, and on items above a stated value, which usually have to be scheduled individually to be covered at all.