Kathmandu. On Friday (October 18), a major fire broke out in the cargo village of Dhaka airport. This affected hundreds of importers.
However, importers who have an Air Risk Only Clause insurance policy for their imported goods will not be able to get any insurance claim for the goods damaged in the fire. According to the terms of the Air Risk Only Clause, imported goods are covered by this insurance from the time of boarding to the time of landing. Once unloaded, they are no longer under insurance cover.
Apart from this, the Air Risk Only Clause states that compensation will be given according to the risk cover due to air accidents, hijackings and forced landing while transporting goods by air. The most commonly damaged were the pharmaceutical industry, mobile phones and textiles.
M/s Mahabur Rahman Particle Mills Ltd, an importer of Rangpur, imported goods worth 783,464 taka (local currency) from China. He had insured the goods as per the terms of the LC. Only air risk is mentioned in the insurance policy. This means that he will not receive any insurance claims for damaged goods under Air Risk.
Abu Bakr Siddiqui, Insurance Manager of M/s Mahbur Rahman Petical Mills said, “The insurance is done through banks. There are many brokers that offer insurance. We don’t have much information about it. ’
The only other insurance company with air risk was Uniglory Paper and Packaging Limited. It was an importer based in Tangel. The company imported goods worth 94,000 taka from Taiwan. All the belongings were destroyed in the fire.
According to Kaiser Insurance Manager of Uniglory Paper & Packaging, the insurance company had insured the goods. He, however, could not say what kind of risk the goods covered. The company will not receive any compensation under this insurance.
According to Masoud Bakul of the CNF agent and importer SGS company, this type of accident has never happened before. “That’s why they chose only the air risk clause to reduce the cost of insurance,” he said. ’
According to the CEO of the insurance company, customers want to get insurance at a low cost. So, in most cases, they choose only the air risk section.
Hassan Tarek, CEO of Easton Insurance, said, “Customers choose an air risk policy because of the low premium, even though its coverage is limited. He suggested that an ‘air all-risk’ policy should be considered for better safety. Which covers the entire transportation risk from loading to unloading the goods. ’
