Policies may not cover road carriers in full

THERE ARE some policies taken out by road carriers which appear to cover them for liability, but do not do so in the majority of instances, is the warning from attorney Steven Wallace of Garlicke & Bousfield, Durban.
Addressing the one-day seminar arranged by the Insurance Institute of South Africa and dealing with transportation insurance, he said:
Those policies contain a clause excluding the insurer from having to cover the carrier for liability for damage to goods which were insured elsewhere.
Given that most senders of goods insure them against loss or damage, this means that the road carrier is not covered by his policy. The cargo sender will claim under his own policy, and the cargo insurers will then sue the road carrier.
The road carrier will then confidently look to his own insurer, only to be met with the response that he is not covered by the policy because the goods were already insured.
As you can imagine this causes quite some frustration on the part of the road carrier, who thinks that he has wasted his premium.
It would be a good idea, he said, for South Africa to consider signing the internationally recognised CMR Conven-tion to put us on a par with road transportation in Europe, but whether or not that will happen I cannot say.
The CMR Convention, he said, is a reasonably fair contract for carriage of goods by road, where there is a balance between the rights of the carrier and of those interested in the goods.
Until such time as this is adopted here, the liability of road carriers will be determined by the common law, as modified by their standard trading conditions. It is therefore vital that the standard trading conditions of any road carrier are properly drafted and incorporated into the contracts of which they purport to be part.