International freight transport and logistics insurer TT Club has urged action from both its members and “all those involved in the cool supply chain” to reduce perishable cargo losses and refrigerated container failures and damage.
According to the specialist insurer, an analysis of its claims records for transport operators over the past three years showed temperature-controlled incidents ranking third in number. Additionally, the insurer said that almost 30% of these incidents involved a miscommunication of operational instructions on care of the cargo, with a further 23% down to temperature setting errors.
In a statement, TT Club said it continues in its attempts to minimize losses with publicly available guidance documents and online webinars – the latest of which was held last week.
“Our own experiences and the data drawn from our claims history was reinforced by over a third of webinar attendees, who when asked their perception of the primary risk factors, pointed to communications errors with ambiguous or incorrect instructions passed between supply chain stakeholders,” said Mike Yarwood, loss prevention managing director at TT Club. “Clearly a number of these processes are out of the control of forwarder, carrier, and terminal operator. But as the demand for unitized transport of perishables continues its upward trend, it is vital that the transport links in the chain become more informed about all the relevant processes to improve the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders.”
