Moon Insurance Managers, Inc. · TDI license #5595
Insurance for Wholesalers and Distributors in Houston, TX
This is not one standardized policy. Inventory moves through a supplier, a port, your warehouse, a third-party facility, a carrier’s truck and a customer dock — and the contract can change who bears the risk at each handoff. So we start where the goods start and follow them.
- 41years in Houston
- 20+markets compared
- Same dayDPS filing
- #5595TDI license
The method
Map one shipment from purchase order to customer
A useful review follows three things: the goods, the contract, and the name or brand under which the product reaches the market. Pick a normal shipment, trace it from the supplier to the final delivery, and write down each of these:
- The product — what it is, and what the person at the end of the chain does with it.
- Where it comes from — bought domestically or imported — and if imported, who is the importer of record.
- When it becomes yours — the point at which the goods are identified to the purchase or sales contract. That is a contract fact, not a warehouse fact.
- Every place it sits — owned and leased warehouses, third-party facilities, ports, processors, packaging sites, temporary space, and a customer dock before final delivery.
- Who moves it — the mode of each leg, and the party that arranges and pays for it.
- Where delivery is named — the named delivery point in the contract, spelled out rather than assumed.
- What happens to it on the way — any inspection, processing, repackaging, or installation.
- How it comes back — the return, reverse-logistics, or recall path.
The purpose is not to make an insurance agent your lawyer or your customs adviser. It is to put the operating map next to the contracts and the policies instead of assuming every handoff has the same answer.
Texas sales law lets the parties agree when title passes, gives buyers and sellers an insurable interest in specified circumstances, and applies different defaults to shipment and destination contracts. Title is therefore not the only insurance question, and no single shipping abbreviation settles it. The complete purchase and sales terms matter.
Source: Texas Business and Commerce Code, ch. 2 — sales. Verified .
One number hides seven
Inventory changes by place, season and ownership
“Total inventory” can hide the values most likely to become an insurance problem. List the average and the maximum stock at each of:
- owned and leased warehouses;
- fulfillment centers and third-party warehouses;
- ports, terminals, processors and packaging locations;
- temporary storage locations;
- customer locations, before final delivery; and
- each transit leg.
Then separate that inventory by status, because the statuses do not behave alike:
- Owned goods Your stock
- Bought, paid for, on your own account. The case every row below is measured against.
- Consigned goods Title elsewhere
- In your building, on somebody else’s account. Whose interest the policy protects is worth saying out loud.
- Sold but not delivered Between two owners
- Identified to a sales contract, still in your custody. Risk here follows the contract, not the loading dock.
- Customer property Held, not owned
- Goods you store, pick or pack for someone else. Holding them for a fee can be a different operation entirely.
- Returns and damaged goods Coming back
- Reverse logistics is counted last and valued loosely, which is why it belongs on the list.
- Refrigerated or perishable Condition-sensitive
- Where the loss can be a temperature excursion rather than a fire or a theft.
- Regulated, hazardous or theft-attractive Underwriting-sensitive
- These change the submission. Commodity-price-sensitive stock also changes the value on the day of the loss.
Commercial property insurance owns the building, the business personal property, the inventory, property held for others, valuation and the covered-cause-of-loss questions. TDI identifies property held for others and inland marine as separate checks, and commercial property policies are not standardized in Texas — so the locations, the ownership arrangement, the contract, the declarations, the limits and the policy wording control the answer.
Some market forms carry seasonal inventory or other stock extensions. That does not make a seasonal increase automatic. Disclose the highest value you reasonably expect at each location rather than an ordinary monthly average.
Sources: TDI — commercial property insurance guide (cb021); TDI — commercial insurance. Verified .
Every leg, separately
Transit starts with the contract
Goods do not become insured because a purchase order uses a familiar shipping term. For each leg, ask:
- Who arranges the leg?
- Who pays the freight?
- Who bears the risk while the goods are moving?
- Where is the named delivery point?
- Is there an ocean or air leg?
- Are the goods yours, or another party’s freight?
- What is the largest value exposed in one conveyance, or accumulated in one place?
On international trade, the ICC’s Incoterms 2020 rules allocate the buyer’s and seller’s tasks, costs and risks — and the exact rule, the version and the named place all matter. Only two of those rules, CIF and CIP, put a specified cargo-insurance duty on the seller, and they set different minimum levels. Even then, the actual policy has to be read against the actual shipment and contract. We read those terms for insurance intake; interpreting them is work for counsel.
Your own stock moving inbound or outbound can call for a shipper’s-interest, inland-marine, ocean-cargo or stock-throughput review, depending on the contract, the mode, the route, the locations and the form. Structures exist in the market that combine inventory, transit and storage interests in one place, but their scope and their exclusions vary; none should be assumed available or suitable.
Motor truck cargo is a different question altogether. If the business also operates as a for-hire carrier — hauling another party’s freight for money, rather than moving its own stock — that operation carries its own liability for the load, and motor truck cargo insurance is where it belongs. It is not automatically the answer for a distributor’s own inventory.
Selling is not always making
Product responsibility follows the role
“We did not make it” is not where the question ends. Texas law treats manufacturers and sellers separately and then carries conditional exceptions, while federal consumer-product law uses its own in-scope definitions for importers and private labelers. Importing, private-labelling, modifying or repackaging a product can change what is asked of the business — without, by itself, deciding legal status.
So the review identifies who imported, branded, modified, installed or made representations about the goods. It does not try to reach a legal conclusion from the word “distributor”, in either direction.
Product liability insurance owns the depth here: supply-chain roles, third-party product harm, contractual risk transfer, damage to the insured’s own product, discontinued products and recall expense.
What stays on this page is traceability, because that is an operating fact. An allegation that a product harmed someone and the work of locating, stopping, withdrawing, replacing or disposing of goods are two different questions — ordinary commercial general liability does not pay the cost of recalling faulty products. Product-specific reporting and compliance duties belong with the applicable regulator and qualified counsel.
Sources: Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, ch. 82; 15 U.S.C. §2052 — Office of the Law Revision Counsel; TDI — commercial general liability insurance; CPSC — duty to report. Verified .
Undamaged and still stopped
Find the dependency outside the warehouse
A distributor can lose revenue with its own building untouched. Name the supplier, port, processor, warehouse, utility or customer whose shutdown would interrupt your flow the longest, and how long you could run without it.
Lost income after covered property damage generally begins with covered direct physical loss or damage that stops normal operations. Contingency or dependent-property coverage can reach an indirect loss involving a supplier or a customer, subject to the policy’s covered-loss requirement, the qualifying relationship, the named locations, the limits, the waiting period and the rest of its terms. Extra expense can be another conditional extension. Its own page is coming with a later batch; in the meantime, the dependency itself is what to bring to the conversation.
Supplier concentration, a port delay or the loss of a major customer does not create coverage on its own. Each is a reason to identify the dependency and compare it with what the form actually says.
Source: TDI — business interruption and other business insurance. Verified .
Four more owners
Complete the operating picture
The inventory map runs into four separate policy questions. Each has its own page, and none of them is re-explained here:
Separate questions, separate pages
Forklifts, racking, refrigeration, fire protection, security, hazardous chemicals and regulated goods can all change a submission, so they belong in the first conversation. Insurance does not replace safety, customs or product-compliance obligations.
One boundary worth stating plainly: a business that stores customer goods for a fee, runs fulfillment or 3PL services, forwards freight, clears customs, or hauls customer freight as a for-hire carrier is doing something else as well as distributing, and that needs its own operational and legal-liability review. Describe the actual service rather than assuming a distributor program answers it.
Have these ready
What the first conversation needs
You do not need a completed underwriting application to call us. Start with what you already know:
- The products — a short description, and what they are used for.
- The locations — primary owned and third-party storage, with average and maximum inventory value at each.
- The status of the stock — owned, consigned, customer-owned, returned, or sold but not delivered.
- Imports and labels — imported, private-label, modified, installed or repackaged products, and whether the business is importer of record.
- How it ships — owned vehicles, hired carriers, parcel, air, ocean or rail, in broad terms.
- The sensitive stock — refrigerated, perishable, hazardous, regulated or high-value goods.
- The dependencies — critical suppliers, processors, ports, warehouses, utilities and customers.
- The people and the vehicles — employee count, a broad payroll range, and vehicles used for pickups, deliveries or other work.
- The paperwork you already have — current carrier and renewal date, and any vendor, customer, landlord, lender or certificate requirement.
Please do not send product lists, source or customer records, complete contracts, customs documents, certificates of conformity, loss runs, recall files or SDS libraries through an ordinary website message. If documents are needed, call (281) 484-8320 and staff will provide an approved way to transfer them.
Questions distributors ask
Is insurance for wholesalers and distributors one policy?
No. The program depends on the products, the locations, the inventory values, the transportation arrangements, the contracts, the employees, the vehicles, and the business’s role in the supply chain. Commercial property forms are not standardized in Texas, and specialized policies use their own terms.
Am I treated as a manufacturer if I import or private-label a product?
For consumer products within CPSC jurisdiction, federal law includes importers in the manufacturer definition and separately defines private labelers. Texas product-liability law uses its own manufacturer, seller, indemnity and conditional seller-liability rules. The product, the role, the conduct, the contract, the facts and the applicable law all matter, which is why the answer belongs with counsel rather than an insurance page.
What if inventory moves through several transit legs?
Map each leg separately. The purchase and sales contracts, the insurable interest, the mode, the route, the locations, the attachment and termination wording, the exclusions and the values all matter. Motor truck cargo covers a for-hire carrier hauling another party’s freight; it is not automatically the answer for a distributor’s own inventory.
What if distributed goods have to be recalled?
Ordinary commercial general liability does not pay the cost to recall faulty products. Third-party bodily injury or property damage and the expense of finding, withdrawing, replacing or disposing of your own goods are separate questions.
What about inventory at a third-party warehouse?
Disclose every location, the ownership arrangement, the contract and the maximum value. Commercial property, inland marine, shipper’s interest, stock throughput and warehouse-liability policies protect different interests. None of them should be assumed from the location alone.
Can insurance account for seasonal inventory peaks?
Some forms and endorsements can address a disclosed seasonal increase, subject to their own terms and limits. Report the highest value you reasonably expect at every location rather than relying on an ordinary month.
No obligation
Map the goods before choosing the pieces
Tell us what you distribute, where the inventory sits, the maximum value at each location, whether you import or private-label, who moves the goods, and which supplier or customer could interrupt the flow longest. We will help organize it into a licensed insurance conversation. The phone is fastest: (281) 484-8320, or use the form below. The Houston office is on FM 1959, on the southeast side.
Already a Moon customer who needs proof of existing coverage? Use the certificate of insurance request. A certificate documents coverage; it does not create or change it.
Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 5:00; Friday, 9:00 to 4:00. 360 FM 1959, Houston, TX 77034. Policies written statewide — you do not have to be local.