The three benchmark London market wordings for cargo insurance, ranging from all risks down to named major perils.
The Institute Cargo Clauses are the three wordings that serve as the global reference for cargo insurance, whatever law governs the contract. Form A covers all risks of loss or damage, subject to the listed exclusions, and it is for the underwriter to establish that an exclusion bites. Forms B and C instead list the perils insured, with C limited to major casualties such as fire, stranding, sinking or overturning of the land conveyance, while B adds earthquake, entry of sea water and total loss of a package during loading. All three share a common floor of exclusions, among them inherent vice, insufficient packing, delay, insolvency of the carrier and unseaworthiness known to the assured, with war and strikes sitting in separate wordings that must be added. The revision effective January 1, 2009 softened several of those exclusions and lengthened the transit period covered. The problem solved is a negotiation that could not be repeated for every shipment between parties of different languages and legal systems, which three stable wordings render comparable from one market to the next.
When the container ship X-Press Pearl caught fire and then sank off Colombo between May 20 and June 2, 2021, shippers insured on form A could claim their share of the 1,486 containers lost without having to name the operative peril, whereas form C, confined to the listed major casualties, would have left the water and smoke damage suffered before the sinking uncompensated.
ICC A, ICC B, ICC C