One group, one responsibility

Faktorik Group began in 2007 as an insurance broker in Copenhagen, buying cargo cover for clients and reading the fine print on their behalf. Today 2,300 specialists in 21 offices across North America and Europe write that cover themselves, in terms the buyer can read.

Why a group

A shipment rarely has one owner of the risk. A forwarder books it, a 3PL stores it, a barge operator moves it, a parcel carrier delivers it. When something goes wrong, each points at the next. We built Faktorik as a group of companies, with underwriting, inspection, claims and carrier recovery under one roof, so there is exactly one place to call and one balance sheet behind the answer.

That is what “one responsibility” means in practice. The policy names a single limit in dollars, and the claim is paid by the company that wrote the policy. Recovery from the carrier is our task afterwards, never a condition of your settlement.

From Copenhagen to the Columbia

The brokerage opened in Copenhagen in 2007, placing cargo risk for Scandinavian furniture makers and food exporters. By 2010 we had rewritten enough policies on clients’ behalf that carrying the risk ourselves made more sense, and the cargo line became its own company. In 2014 the US head office opened in Portland, Oregon, on the Columbia River, where river barges meet the railroad and the interstate.

The group now insures about $3.1 billion of cargo a year across more than 160 trade routes. We still read every policy from the client’s side first, the way the brokerage did.

Where we sit

Twenty-one offices, one answer

Underwriters, inspectors, claims handlers and recovery staff work from the river ports and rail hubs they cover. A damaged load in Rotterdam or Portland is seen by someone who can drive to it before lunch.

21 Offices

2300 Specialists

97% Claims settled in 30 days

How we work

Five rules the group keeps

They are the reasons clients renew, and now and then the reason we decline to quote.

Read it as the buyer

Every clause is written to be understood by the person signing it, without a broker to translate. If it needs translating, we rewrite it.

Look at the goods

A damaged sofa or a short-shipped pallet is inspected where it sits: the dock, the rail yard, the 3PL’s racking, the clinic storeroom. Photographs open the file; a person closes it.

State limits in dollars

No formulas, no percentages of percentages. Limits, deductibles, aggregates and the uplift for lost margin appear as numbers on the front page.

Answer the phone, every hour

Loads go wrong at two in the morning on a Sunday. The notification line is staffed by our own people in North America and Europe, all year.

Pay, then recover

Ninety-seven percent of claims close within 30 days. We pursue the carrier afterwards, on our time, never on yours.

We started as brokers, reading policies for clients and wishing they were shorter. When we began writing our own we kept two rules: one group answers for the whole route, and the policy fits on a page the client will read.
Founding partners, Faktorik Group

Talk to the group that pays the claim

Tell us what you move, where it goes, which legs it rides and who hauls each one. You will get terms in plain language, from the people who will answer when something goes wrong.

Ask for terms