12.07.00 - Howard Franks, Underwriter of Wellington and lead underwriter of freightinsure.com, a web site dedicated to the cargo insurance needs of freight forwarders and household goods movers requiring cargo coverage, announced some startling web statistics at this week’s Lloyd’s Agents Conference.

Franks, who spoke on ‘a new approach to cargo insurance’ discussed how new ecommerce initiatives have been introduced to halt the decrease in overall cargo premiums within the London market.

Franks commented, “As the Internet provides an increasingly efficient manner of transacting high volume, low premium business, web sites such as freightinsure.com are making significant strides in such a traditional market. By harnessing the speed and convenience of the Internet, freightinsure.com has opened up a whole new area of business for many brokers who may not have previously considered arranging this type of cover.

The site offers brokers the ability to obtain online quotations and bind risks, plus the added benefit of their Assured’s being able to issue Lloyd’s certificates. The system has enabled claims to be settled within 10 days of occurrence. Freightinsure.com brings to market e-commerce initiatives that will hopefully halt the last 15 years of diminishing Lloyd’s market cargo premiums.

Freightinsure.com’s sites statistics speaks volumes – over 100 accounts bound since July 1999; over 10,000 certificates issued and over 300,000 hits since 1 st Jan 2000; plus a Top Ten US freight forwarder in the US has just recently been bound,” added Franks.