Vero Marine partners with TradeWindow to become first NZ insurer offering digital cargo insurance certificates

Vero has announced today that it will be the first marine insurer in New Zealand to be able to offer an entirely digital solution for cargo insurance certificates.

The company has become part of a new end-to-end digital process for export shipping documentation which replaces physically posted shipping documents with a digitised solution.

Having partnered with trade technology innovation company, TradeWindow, Vero will be providing a marine insurance offering for TradeWindow’s secure trading platform. The platform uses blockchain technology, which means banks and importers can have confidence in the authenticity of the digital certificates.

Allen Chong, Vero’s Executive Manager Marine, says that shipping documentation is critical to the marine cargo industry, as these documents represent ownership of the cargo.

“Marine cargo is out of sight at sea, so having possession of the shipping documents means that you are the prima facie owner of the cargo for collection or if anything goes wrong and you need to make an insurance claim.”

He says that while in the past shipping documents generally travelled by sea, or were couriered by air, digital certificates offer a faster, simpler and more secure process.

Chong says Vero is proud to be leading the New Zealand marine industry to market with this digital option for its customers, giving customers a more secure way to receive their insurance certificates.

“Being able to offer this solution to our customers is a huge milestone for the Vero Marine team, TradeWindow, and most importantly, our mutual customers.”

TradeWindow CEO, AJ Smith says the partnership with Vero is an important milestone for New Zealand marine exporters.

“This initiative gives our mutual customers the ability to transact in a more secure and trusted way. Our platform ‘Cube’, which uses blockchain technology, means all parties along the supply chain can have confidence in the authenticity of the digital insurance certificates.”

The connection between TradeWindow’s Cube platform and Vero Marine’s Ecert system will allow mutual customers to request and manage insurance certificates directly within Cube. Any changes to the insured’s policy and any changes to the marine insurance certificate template will automatically be updated by Vero Marine.