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Every book in the International Trade and Transport Law Series has dealt with a different piece of the international trade puzzle. This one deals with the piece that traders most often get wrong: insurance.

Most traders know they need marine cargo insurance. Far fewer understand what their policy actually covers, what it excludes, and what they must do — before they ship, during the voyage, and at the moment something goes wrong — to ensure that their claim gets paid. The gap between knowing you have insurance and knowing how to use it is where cargo losses become financial disasters.

Marine Insurance: A Trader's Guide closes that gap. Written by international trade and transport lawyer John Gates, drawing on years of practice in cargo claims, marine insurance disputes, and admiralty law, it explains the full landscape of marine cargo insurance in the plain language that traders, importers, exporters, and freight forwarders actually need.

The book opens with the fundamental question that most traders get wrong: why you cannot rely on the carrier. The Hague-Visby Rules cap carrier liability at figures that will not come close to covering the value of most cargo losses. Marine insurance is not optional. It is the foundation of prudent international trade.

From there, the book takes the reader through the three Institute Cargo Clauses — A, B, and C — in plain English, explaining not just what each covers but which one to choose and why. It addresses the exclusions that most traders do not know about until they try to make a claim: the packaging exclusion, inherent vice, the delay exclusion, and the war and strikes risks that must be purchased separately. It explains General Average — one of the most financially significant events that can happen to a cargo owner, even when their goods arrive completely undamaged — with real stories from practice that illustrate its impact.

The book covers how to find and work with a specialist marine broker, how to value cargo correctly to avoid the underinsurance trap, and how to make a claim that actually gets paid — step by step, from the moment damage is discovered to the final settlement.

The central mantra of this book, and of the series, is simple: you don't know what you don't know. In marine insurance, perhaps more than anywhere else in international trade, the things you do not know can be very expensive indeed.

Essential reading for exporters, importers, freight forwarders, trade finance bankers, customs brokers, marine surveyors, and anyone who moves goods across borders and wants to understand what they are — and are not — covered for when something goes wrong.

Marine Insurance - a Trader's Guide

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