In our Transportation Tuesday series, we’re partnering with industry leaders to share tips on how you can improve your business success and growth. This week’s tip is brought to you by Loadsure.
Tip #5: Did you know that $45 million in cargo has been stolen this year?
Right now, gangs and crime syndicates are plotting to seize your customers’ valuable freight. Do you or your customers have a plan in place if they are unlucky enough to be a victim?
Criminals have already stolen $45 million in cargo between January and September this year. That’s a jaw-dropping sum when you consider $49 million was stolen during the entire course of 2019.
Here’s a checklist of what you can do to protect your customers’ balance sheets — and retain future business — when you’re responsible for their shipments’ journeys:
1. Help customers understand who they’re up against
Cargo theft is largely perpetrated by crime syndicates and gangs — groups with a working knowledge of how our freight industry operates. They’re brazen, tech-savvy and highly sophisticated. They can convincingly scam dock workers and jam asset tracking signals.
2. Make sure customers understand recovery is rare
Law enforcement don’t have the resources necessary to investigate cargo crimes. So, if a load goes missing and it’s not immediately recovered, the chances of finding it are practically nil.
3. Raise the flag on electronics and food and beverage shipments
These commodities are expected to be highly targeted during the holiday season.
4. Educate customers to be on guard for fictitious pickups
Whether criminals are securing information via cyber-hack, posting false loads to steal carrier identities, or some other approach, the result is the same: they’re arriving onsite and posing as legitimate carriers with all the right information. Be sure customers are strictly adhering to their pick-up protocols — from using secure pickup numbers and confirming driver identities to putting eyes on trucks and ensuring the numbers and visual descriptions match up.
5. Ensure you and your customers are keeping data secure
Cybercrime is increasingly contributing to cargo theft. Be sure both you and your customers’ in-house IT or managed services providers are locking down data and training employees on good data hygiene.
6. Implement risk management to ensure financial recovery
Leveraging shippers interest cargo insurance — otherwise known as “all-risk” insurance — your customers can ensure that if something goes wrong, it’s not their balance sheet that takes the hit. And, with AI-powered cargo insurance, you can deliver instant quotes, accelerate claims, and open up a new revenue stream — protecting your customers and growing your business.
Have a tip to share or want some advice?
If you want to share your own insight and be featured in our next Transportation Tuesday Tip or if you want us to dive deeper into a challenge you’re facing, email us at tips@dat.com.
About Loadsure’s first-dollar cargo coverage
Powered by AI and automation, Loadsure makes it easy to protect the customers you care about from holiday spikes in cargo theft — even when it’s inside theft.
With Loadsure, you can:
- Get instant cargo insurance quotes
- Get per-load, all-risk coverage in less than 40 seconds
- Submit cargo theft claims in minutes
- Gain real-time transparency into claims status
- Settle claims in days or minutes
- Receive claim payments in minutes with direct deposit
Cement yourself as a freight broker that protects their customers from cargo theft, while also simplifying your work and boosting your profitability.
Find out how AI-powered, per-load coverage can help you do that.
