Multimodal forwarding under one through contract

One contract on top, several subcontracts underneath

The customer receives a single document and a single price covering the whole journey. Behind it sit separate agreements with a haulier, a line or airline, possibly a rail operator, terminals and correspondents, each on its own terms and each with its own limits. The intermediary has effectively bought retail risk and wholesale protection. The practical consequence is that the through document should be issued deliberately rather than as a convenience. Once it exists, the customer is entitled to look to one party for the whole movement regardless of which subcontractor failed.

Network liability and the loss nobody can locate

Where damage can be pinned to a particular leg, the compensation position usually follows the regime governing that leg, and those regimes differ substantially in their limits and in how quickly a claim must be notified. Where the loss cannot be located, which is common with sealed units opened only at the far end, the through contract's own terms decide the outcome, and they may be less generous than the customer assumed. Because these regimes and their interaction are jurisdiction-specific, the position on any given routing is a matter for the firm's legal advisers and its insurers rather than a general rule that can be stated once.

Price the joins, not only the legs

The cost that ruins a through quotation is rarely the line-haul. It is the interface: waiting at a terminal, storage while the next leg is arranged, repositioning of equipment, an additional lift because the transfer window was missed, or a second collection attempt. Each of these belongs to nobody in particular unless the quotation says so. Building the price around the handovers, with explicit allowances for dwell and access at each one, produces a number that survives the shipment. Building it by adding rates together produces a number that survives the sales meeting.

Keeping operational control across handovers

A through movement needs one milestone set covering the whole journey rather than three partial ones held by three suppliers. Without it, nobody notices that a unit has arrived and is sitting uncollected until the storage invoice appears. The most useful discipline is defining, in advance, who confirms each handover and within what period. Data continuity also decides claims outcomes. Condition recorded at each interchange is what later allows a loss to be located and recovered from the responsible subcontractor rather than absorbed.

Frequently asked questions

Is a through document always better for the customer?

It is simpler, and it gives one counterparty to pursue. Whether it is better depends on the terms of that document, since the compensation available under a through contract can be lower than under the regime that would have governed the failing leg on its own.

How can a forwarder reduce unlocalised loss?

By recording condition at every interchange. Seal checks, photographs and written exceptions at each transfer turn an unlocalised claim into a located one, which is the difference between absorbing a loss and recovering it from a subcontractor.