Transit insurance for self-employed professionals
As a self-employed professional you either drive around with your own materials, or you carry goods for a client for payment. That difference determines which policy bears the loss and whether you are insured at all.
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In brief
Transit insurance pays for damage to or loss of the goods you carry. For a self-employed person those are two very different things. If you drive to a job as an installer, landscaper or plasterer with your own materials, it is own goods in transit. If you drive as a courier or charter haulier with a client's freight, you are a carrier and the question is not what the cargo is worth, but what you are liable for.
In that second case the AVC conditions apply to domestic carriage and the CMR Convention internationally. Your liability there is limited to an amount per kilogram. If you carry parcels, telephones or medical samples, the value per kilo is many times that limit, and the difference stays with the client unless he has goods insurance of his own. What is involved is set out on transport insurance for courier services.
The third element is forgotten most often: your tools and business equipment are not goods within the meaning of a transit policy. After all, they are not delivered. There is a tools insurancefor those. Damage you cause to the customer's property while loading or unloading is something else again: that is liability and belongs on a liability insurance for self-employed professionals.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare goods in transit insurance.
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We report the claim and monitor how it is handled. In urgent cases you can reach us on the emergency line.
What to look out for
Four points that determine whether damage to your load is actually paid for.
Your declared capacity has to be right
The policy schedule states what you do. If it says 'carriage of own goods' while you also drive paid journeys for third parties, that is a different risk from the one insured. That engages Article 7:928 of the Dutch Civil Code and the consequences of this are set out in Article 7:930 of the Dutch Civil Code. If you take on professional carriage, declare it, even if it is only a few journeys a month.
The van is not a safe
Theft from a a vehicle left unattended is excluded outside the circumstances described. Policies generally require a locked and secured vehicle, a stated time window and sometimes a locked site. If you load the van the evening before so as to leave earlier in the morning, in practice you do so uninsured.
What is never covered
Excluded are damage caused by the properties of the goods themselves, such as sagging, rusting or spoilage, unsound packing or securing by you, and loss through delay. Fines, contractual penalty clauses and the turnover you miss because you stand idle for a day also stay outside the policy. The last of these is a business interruption risk.
Loading, unloading and goods in your care
If you damage the customer's floor or door frames while unloading, that is liability. Watch the care, custody and control exclusionthere: items you temporarily have in your care to carry, work on or keep are excluded on an ordinary liability policy. It is precisely that gap that transit or care, custody and control cover fills.
What does your premium depend on?
- What you carry: materials, parcels or high-value goods
- Value per journey: determines the sum insured you need
- Working area: regional, national or cross-border
- Security and storage: an alarm, a locked site and where you park at night
- Number of journeys a week: more movements means more loading and unloading moments
- Excess: agreed per event
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered on the load
| Situation | Extended | Comprehensive |
|---|---|---|
| Your van catches fire on the motorway and the whole consignment is lost | Yes | Yes |
| An oncoming vehicle hits you and the goods in the load space are damaged | Yes | Yes |
| During a downpour water gets in through the roof hatch and affects the cardboard | Provided that | Yes |
| The consignee counts fewer packages on arrival than the consignment note shows, with no visible damage | No | Provided that |
| After unloading, a rack falls onto your goods in the consignee's warehouse | No | No |
| You deliver a pallet to the wrong consignee and do not get it back | No | No |
The cover runs from departure to delivery. What happens after that on the consignee's premises falls outside it.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
I only drive my own materials around. Do I need this?
That depends on the value in your vehicle each day. Materials you take to a job and use there are own transport. If they are damaged on the way by a collision or fire, the motor policy does not pay for them. If it is mainly hand tools and machinery, tool insurance is usually the more logical route.
My client says his insurance covers the cargo. Is that right?
Sometimes it is, but that does not relieve you of your own liability as a carrier. If the client has goods insurance, it pays out and his insurer then seeks recovery from you. So always ask in writing on what conditions you drive and whether a waiver of recourse has been agreed; do not rely on a verbal assurance.
What should I do if something goes wrong on the way?
Report it as soon as you know about it; Article 7:941 of the Dutch Civil Code obliges you to do so and to cooperate in establishing the loss. Photograph the load, the packaging and the load space before you move anything, have the consignee note the damage on the consignment note and always report a theft to the police. Without those documents a claim generally stalls.
Will I be paid the full value of the cargo?
You are paid what you have actually lost, up to the sum insured. With third-party goods that is the value of the item, not the turnover your client misses. Article 7:960 of the Dutch Civil Code prohibits a payment that puts you in a better position than before the loss. So declare the usual cargo value realistically on the application.
Every situation is different. For these situations we have a separate page.
- Compare goods in transit insuranceThe main page
- Insurance for the transport of goodsOwn transport, carriers' liability, door to door
- Own goods in transit insurance through a.s.r.Your own property, overnight clause, loading and unloading
- Own goods in transit insurance for self-employed professionalsA workshop on wheels, market value, trailer
- Transport insurance for self-employed professionalsConsignments, passing of risk, packing
- Own goods in transit insurance for self-employed professionalsTools in the van, overnight storage, replacement value
- Transport insurance for a removals companyLiability, contents in transit, storage