If you’re involved in a business that relies on shipped cargo or that is in the shipping business, you’ll likely become very good friends with a transportation and subrogation attorney at some point.
In order to move goods around the country or globe, cargo has to be shipped by a variety of different methods. You might use ocean vessels to transport doodads from Country A to Country B. You might also utilize airplanes, trains, trucks, and buses. Along the way, your doodads will probably need to be warehoused somewhere.
If you ship a lot of cargo, chances are that at some point you’ll face a loss due to theft, damage, or some sort of failure in the delivery system. This could be devastating if you didn’t have insurance against such a loss. In fact, it could ruin your business entirely because you would then lack the cash or capital to replace the cargo you need. Fortunately, you were smart and always insure your cargo.
Your insurance company will then be required to compensate you for the loss according to your policy. Now you’re able to keep doing business, but your insurance company is out a big chunk of change, and they won’t take that sitting down. The insurance company hires a subrogation attorney to go after the party responsible for the loss in order to recover the value of the cargo.
“Subrogation” means to stand in the shoes of another, so a subrogation attorney specializes in this type of recovery for insurance companies. The insurance company has stood in the shoes of the party responsible for the cargo loss or damage by remitting to you, their customer, the amount specified in your contract. Now they’ll go after what’s owed by whoever allowed the loss.
Companies that insure shipped cargoes know very well how valuable an experienced, skilled, and aggressive subrogation attorney can be. This type of lawyer should also wear the maritime attorney (for ocean-going freight) and transportation attorney hats because the laws for international shipping are highly complex. They will need to be well versed in a number of rules, regulations, and treaties.
If you are a business owner, insurance company, recovery company, trucking company, shipper, freight forwarder, logistics company, or warehouseman, you need one of these guys in your rolodex and possibly on speed dial. Organized crime groups have become better and much more aggressive in arranging thefts from traveling cargo as well as from warehouses. The stolen goods are used to provide cash for other illegal activities. Damage, of course, can happen at any time, from a train derailing to a warehouse fire. You should never have uninsured cargo, and you should always have an attorney.