CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) is the maritime incoterm where the seller pays the freight to the destination port and takes out insurance on the goods. It sounds like door-to-port comfort, but it carries fine print that surprises many importers: the risk travels with you from the port of origin.
The fine print
Even though the seller pays freight to destination, risk transfers exactly as in FOB: when the goods are on board at origin. If the container is damaged at sea, the claim is yours, using the insurance the seller chose. And that insurance only has to be minimum cover, which leaves out a good part of the losses that actually happen.
Why suppliers push it
Chinese suppliers like CIF because they control the freight and add their margin to it. For you it means not choosing the carrier or the forwarder, learning the real dates late, and receiving destination charges that were never in the quote. The low CIF price tends to be recovered at destination.
The common mistake
Assuming the cargo “comes insured” and relaxing. The minimum cover the incoterm requires is rarely the cover your cargo needs: for goods of value, take out your own policy with broad cover, knowing exactly what it pays and who collects in a claim.
Compare CIF with FOB and DDP. Got a CIF quote and want a second opinion? Write to us and we run it against a freight of your own.
