Marine Cargo Insurance (Live Seafood)

Insuring a live shipment of fish, shrimp postlarvae, or shellfish differs fundamentally from insuring a container of frozen fillets, because the cargo can die from a cause with no visible damage to the packaging, such as an oxygen depleted bag, a temperature excursion during a flight delay, or stress-induced mortality during a rough transfer, making loss adjustment dependent on biological evidence rather than simple inspection. Policies typically require documented pre-shipment health certification, packing density within specified limits, and in many cases a named biologist or technician's sign-off on water quality parameters at loading, since insurers use deviation from these protocols to contest claims. Mortality thresholds are usually written into the policy as a percentage of the shipment (commonly allowing 2-5 percent natural mortality without triggering a claim) above which the loss becomes insurable, reflecting the reality that some mortality in live transport is unavoidable even under ideal conditions. High-value shipments, such as broodstock, breeding nucleus postlarvae, or live reef fish for the high-end restaurant trade, increasingly travel with continuous data loggers recording temperature, dissolved oxygen, and ammonia throughout transit specifically to support an insurance claim if something goes wrong, turning the sensor record into the primary evidence rather than visual inspection on arrival.