A pallet of electronics leaves your depot worth £40,000. It arrives with forklift damage, and the consignee phones you for the money. Your first instinct is that the carrier is liable. The carrier’s first instinct is to point at its conditions of carriage. Somewhere between those two instincts sits a gap that goods in transit insurance exists to fill - and most operators only map it properly after their first disputed claim.
The starting point is that a carrier’s legal liability and an insurance policy are different instruments that answer different questions. Liability asks who is responsible for the loss and to what standard. Insurance asks whose policy pays, how much, and on what evidence. A carrier can be fully liable for a loss and still only owe a fraction of the goods’ value, because almost every road haulage contract in the UK limits liability by weight or by a fixed sum.
The most common framework is the Road Haulage Association’s Conditions of Carriage. The 2020 edition, like its predecessors, is a set of terms written to be incorporated into a carrier’s contracts with its customers. The RHA’s own explanatory notes are candid about the drafting: the conditions are tilted in favour of the carrier, and they only work if they are incorporated correctly into each contract. Two practical consequences follow. First, if you are the carrier, conditions sitting unread on your website probably are not incorporated - the customer needs to have had a fair chance to see them before the contract. Second, if you are the customer, the moment you book the haulier you have usually accepted a liability cap, whether or not anyone read it.
Liability caps in carriage conditions are set well below the typical value density of modern freight. High-value, low-weight goods - electronics, pharmaceuticals, branded clothing - are precisely the loads where a weight-based cap bites hardest. A carrier transporting a half-tonne pallet of tablets can be doing its job perfectly, be fully responsible for the loss, and owe a sum that would not replace a tenth of the stock.
This is why prudent consignors either negotiate the liability level up front, buy their own goods in transit policy, or require the carrier to carry cover to a declared value per consignment. None of those options is exotic, but each one needs to be agreed before the load moves. After the loss, the contract as written is the contract you have.
Cross a border and the picture changes again. International road haulage to and from the UK generally runs under the CMR convention, which governs the contract for international carriage of goods by road. The paperwork anchor is the road consignment note - the CMR note - which government guidance on international haulage tells operators to complete for these movements. The CMR convention sets its own liability rules and its own compensation ceiling, calculated by reference to the goods’ weight and expressed in special drawing rights rather than pounds.
For the operator, two disciplines matter. First, complete the CMR note properly: it is the evidence of the contract terms, the goods taken over, and their apparent condition, and it drives any later claim. Second, do not assume your domestic GIT policy stretches automatically to every country on the route. Check territorial limits, and check them against where the trailer will actually go, not where you hope it will.
The same government guidance notes that drivers no longer need an insurance green card for the EU and several neighbouring countries - but that relaxation covers vehicle insurance documents, not goods liability. The trailer still needs suitable insurance, and the load still needs its own cover decision.
Ask any broker where GIT claims go wrong and the same list comes back. Unattended vehicle exclusions: theft from a cab parked overnight outside a recognised truck stop is the classic declined claim. Security conditions: policies commonly require approved locks, alarms or immobilisers, and a missing tracker report can sink an otherwise valid claim. Subcontracting: the haulier you booked may pass the job on, and your contract may end up with a firm you have never vetted. Incorrect goods descriptions: a policy written for “general merchandise” can argue with a load of spirits. And delay: carriage conditions and CMR both treat pure financial loss from late delivery differently from physical loss or damage, and cover for consequential loss is rarely standard.
Before the next high-value load, pin down five things. Which conditions of carriage govern the movement, and were they properly incorporated? What is the liability cap per consignment, in money, against the actual load value? What does the GIT policy exclude - unattended vehicles, specific goods, specific territories? For international legs, is the CMR note being completed and does the cover follow the route? And who is carrying the risk of subcontracted legs? Fifteen minutes of paperwork before departure is cheaper than a six-month dispute after a claim, and it is the difference between finding out what your cover is and deciding what it should be.