Partner program vs. arranging insurance on your own: which one makes sense?

What arranging insurance on your own involves

Building a cargo insurance line from scratch is a project in itself. At a minimum, it means:

• Negotiating with insurers over terms, rates and capacity, with a volume that rarely earns good conditions individually.
• Underwriting and maintaining your own policy, with its premium minimums, annual renewals and adjustments.
• Building infrastructure: someone who understands coverage, issues certificates, tracks production and deals with the insurer.
• Handling claims, which is where the business stakes its reputation: gathering documentation, arguing the claim and sustaining the negotiation through to payment.

For a logistics intermediary, each of those fronts is time and capital diverted from the core business. And the result is usually coverage that's more expensive and more limited than what a program with consolidated volume obtains.

What joining a partner program involves

In a partner program, the policy already exists. Proteus Cargo's is underwritten and active, backed by world-class insurers and reinsurers, with placement in the markets of London, Germany and France. Joining means:

• Starting immediately: you negotiate and underwrite nothing from scratch; your operation joins coverage that's already working.
• Offering terms hard to obtain alone: broad, warehouse-to-warehouse coverage, on any route worldwide, with no deductibles.
• Issuing without infrastructure of your own: from the platform you upload the BL or the invoice, the system reads the document with AI and fills in the data; you review and issue the certificate in minutes.
• Delegating claims: Proteus Cargo manages the claim and responds fast and firmly, in your client's favor. You come out looking good without carrying the negotiation.
• Full flexibility: insure a single shipment or your entire book, with the same quality of coverage, no annual-program lock-in.

It's a shared-revenue model: you add a profitable line of business on the book you already serve, with no upfront investment.

The differences, point by point

• Time to launch. Own policy: months of negotiation and underwriting. Partner program: you join coverage that's already active.
• Capital and infrastructure. Own policy: premium minimums, staff and technical knowledge. Partner program: no capital or insurance infrastructure; Proteus Cargo provides the expertise.
• Quality of coverage. Own policy: terms limited by your individual volume. Partner program: terms, capacity and international backing built on a volume of more than 12,000 shipments insured per year.
• Claims. Own policy: the claim is your problem. Partner program: Proteus Cargo handles it, with the priority on your client recovering what was lost.
• Technology. Own policy: manual processes or development at your expense. Partner program: platform included to issue, retrieve documents and track your production online.

When would an own policy make sense?

Almost never for a logistics intermediary. An own policy can make sense for companies with very large volumes, in-house risk teams and a genuine intent to run insurance as part of the business. If your business is moving cargo —not managing policies— the partner program gives you better terms, zero infrastructure and a partner who responds when something goes wrong.

In summary

Arranging insurance on your own means taking on capital, infrastructure, negotiation and claims in exchange for coverage that's unlikely to beat a consolidated program. Joining the Proteus Cargo partner program means offering, from day one, broad warehouse-to-warehouse coverage with no deductibles, international backing, technology included and claims handled in your client's favor — across the 7 Latin American countries where we have a commercial presence, and on any route in the world.

Want to see the numbers on your own book? Book a 30-minute meeting, no strings attached: book here.