Ocean Marine Insurance
Ocean marine insurance covers exposures tied to shipping goods over water and operating commercial vessels. It typically includes ocean cargo for goods in international transit, plus hull and machinery and protection and indemnity for vessel owners. It picks up where standard property and inland marine policies stop at the water’s edge.
If your business ships goods across oceans, owns or operates watercraft for commercial use, or imports and exports, ocean marine insurance covers exposures that land-based policies were never built for. We help you match the right marine coverage to how your goods and vessels actually move.
What does ocean marine insurance cover?
- Ocean cargo: physical loss or damage to goods shipped internationally by sea or air.
- Hull and machinery: physical damage to commercial vessels you own or operate.
- Protection and indemnity (P&I): a vessel owner’s or operator’s liability for injury, pollution, and damage.
- Marine liability: broader liability tied to marine operations.
Who needs it?
Importers and exporters, businesses that buy or sell goods internationally, freight forwarders, and owners or operators of commercial watercraft.
California’s ports handle a large share of the nation’s trade, so import and export cargo exposure is central to many local businesses. Standard commercial property and inland marine policies typically exclude ocean transit, and the terms of sale (Incoterms) in your contract determine when risk passes to you, which shapes what you need to insure.
How do we help?
We look at what you ship, where it travels, and the terms of your contracts, then structure ocean cargo and, where relevant, hull and liability coverage. For businesses with warehousing and inland legs too, we coordinate with stock throughput and inland marine.
Once goods land, transit by truck is cargo coverage and other domestic movement is inland marine. The wider program is on our business insurance page.
Where does ocean marine coverage stop, and what takes over?
Ocean cargo coverage is written to the terms of sale and to the voyage. When the goods land in California and move inland by truck, a different liability regime applies to the carrier. Under 49 U.S.C. 14706, a motor carrier that receives or delivers property in interstate commerce is liable for the actual loss to it unless the bill of lading limits that liability. Whether your ocean policy’s warehouse-to-warehouse clause carries the goods through that inland leg, or whether a separate inland marine or cargo policy picks it up, depends on the wording and the Incoterm on the sale. That handoff is the gap we check first on an import or export account, and the wider program is on our cargo insurance and inland marine pages.
The federal statute cited is as published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel at the time of writing and is amended from time to time.
