Trade Disruption Protection
Covers lost income when something outside your walls breaks your supply chain.
This is an estimate, not a bound policy — a licensed VAB producer confirms final terms before coverage starts. Sgt. Savings can answer questions but can't quote, bind, or guarantee coverage.
Trade Disruption Protection covers a scheduled percentage of your lost gross earnings, extra expense, and contractual penalties when a listed supply chain is disrupted by a covered event — physical loss at a scheduled supplier, a port or border blockage, government action, political violence, strikes, or a scheduled supplier's insolvency. Unlike traditional business interruption coverage, which usually requires physical damage to your own property, this responds to disruption happening entirely outside your walls, anywhere along a supply chain you've identified in advance. It's non-damage business interruption coverage built for how modern supply chains actually break.
Who This Is Really For
The ideal buyer.
This buyer is a manufacturer, importer, or distributor with real supply chain concentration — a small number of critical suppliers, a dependence on specific ports or shipping routes, or sourcing from regions with genuine political or labor risk — who has done the work of identifying exactly which links in their chain would actually stall production if disrupted. They've usually already experienced a near-miss or a real disruption (a supplier delay, a port slowdown) that cost them money with no way to recover it, because traditional business interruption coverage required physical damage to their own property, and a disruption at someone else's factory or a blocked port doesn't qualify. What makes this the right fit is that it insures the specific concentration risk they've already identified — the suppliers with no easy substitute, the routes with no alternative — rather than a generic policy that doesn't match how their actual supply chain works.
- A manufacturer dependent on a small number of critical suppliers, where one disruption stalls the whole production line
- An importer or distributor exposed to port congestion, border delays, or shipping route disruption
- A company sourcing from regions with real political or labor unrest risk
- A business with contractual penalty exposure to its own customers if its supply chain fails to deliver on time
- A supply chain or procurement leader who's identified specific critical suppliers and wants that concentration risk actually insured
What It Covers
Coverage, broken down.
Gross earnings loss
Covers a scheduled percentage of your lost gross earnings resulting from a covered trade disruption event affecting your listed supply chain.
Extra expense
Covers reasonable extra costs you incur trying to keep operations running during the disruption — sourcing alternate suppliers, expedited shipping, and similar mitigation costs.
Contractual penalties
Covers contractual penalties you owe your own customers because a covered disruption prevented you from delivering on time.
Illustrative Scenario — How This Coverage Responds
Illustrative scenario — a scheduled supplier's factory shuts down
Picture a manufacturer that relies on a single overseas supplier for a critical component, with that supplier listed on its insured supply chain schedule. A fire causes physical loss at the supplier's factory, halting shipments for an extended period. Because the disruption is tied to a scheduled supplier and a covered trigger — physical loss at that supplier's facility — the manufacturer submits its resulting lost gross earnings, extra expense from sourcing an emergency alternate supplier, and any contractual penalties owed to its own customers under its Trade Disruption Protection.
Illustrative example for education only — not a claim outcome or a promise of payment. Every claim depends on the actual policy issued and its terms.
More Than One Way In
More scenarios.
Real coverage doesn't fit one story. Here's who else this shows up for.
The single-source component supplier
A manufacturer relies on one overseas supplier for a component with no readily available substitute, and schedules that supplier specifically under its Trade Disruption Protection after recognizing the concentration risk during a supply chain review.
The port-dependent importer
An importer whose goods move almost exclusively through one port schedules that route under its coverage after watching a competitor absorb real losses during a period of port congestion the importer itself narrowly avoided.
The politically exposed sourcing region
A company sourcing raw materials from a region with a history of labor unrest schedules those suppliers and the associated political violence and strike triggers under its Trade Disruption Protection as part of formalizing its supply chain risk management.
Know The Gaps
What this doesn't cover.
Every policy has limits. Knowing them before you buy is how you avoid a denied claim later.
Your own contractual default or fraud
This protects against disruption from outside events — not your own failure to perform or dishonest conduct. Keep your own contractual obligations in order; that's not a covered trigger.
Related-party suppliers
Disruption at an affiliated or related-party supplier isn't a covered exposure — this is built for arm's-length supply chain risk with independent third parties.
Unscheduled suppliers, routes, or goods
Only the suppliers, routes, and goods you've listed on your schedule are covered — if your supply chain changes, update the schedule so a new critical supplier isn't accidentally left out.
Tariffs and general market conditions
Ordinary cost pressure from tariffs or market shifts isn't a covered disruption event — this is about a discrete disruption trigger, not gradual market or trade-policy change.
Known or pre-existing disruptions
A disruption you already knew about before coverage started isn't a fresh, insurable event — get coverage in place proactively, before a known risk becomes a real problem.
Behind The Quote
What goes into the decision.
What actually moves your price and your approval — no black box.
Which suppliers, routes, and goods are scheduled
Only what's listed on your schedule is covered, so identifying your true concentration risk — the suppliers with no easy substitute or long lead times — is the central decision in scoping this coverage, and keeping the schedule current as sourcing changes matters just as much as the initial setup.
Geographic and political risk of your supply chain
Sourcing from regions with real political instability, labor unrest, or border/customs complexity carries a different risk profile than a stable domestic supply chain, and underwriting weighs that geography directly.
Contractual penalty exposure to your own customers
If your customer contracts carry penalties for late delivery, that exposure is part of what this coverage can reimburse — underwriting needs to understand those contractual terms to scope the coverage correctly.
Historical disruption experience
A supply chain with a documented history of disruption (weather, congestion, supplier instability) is priced with that history in mind, similar to how claims history affects any coverage.
Let's get you covered.
Tell us what you need on Trade Disruption Protection — a licensed VAB advisor follows up personally. No bots, no runaround.
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Availability
Available across the U.S.; we handle the state-specific paperwork on our end, so there's no separate action required from you by state.
Questions, answered straight
No jargon on trade disruption protection — just what you're actually asking.
No — that's the key difference from traditional business interruption coverage. This responds to a disruption event happening at a scheduled supplier or along your supply chain, even with zero physical damage to your own facilities.
Start with the suppliers whose failure would actually hurt — the ones with no easy substitute, long lead times, or geographic/political risk. Your advisor can help you prioritize your schedule around real concentration risk rather than trying to list everything.
Yes — a scheduled supplier's insolvency is one of the listed covered trigger events, alongside physical loss, port or border blockage, government action, political violence, and strikes.
Update your supply chain schedule with your advisor as your sourcing changes — an unscheduled supplier's disruption isn't covered, so keeping the schedule current matters as much as buying the coverage in the first place.
Yes, when the late delivery is caused by a covered trade disruption event — that's one of the three things this coverage is built to reimburse, alongside gross earnings loss and extra expense.
Beyond This Coverage
What people in your situation also need.
Business Loans
Manufacturers and importers managing supply chain risk often need working capital to bridge a disruption even with coverage in place — we can structure both together.
ExploreSBA Loans
Companies diversifying suppliers or sourcing regions to reduce concentration risk often need financing for that transition alongside the coverage protecting the interim exposure.
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Coverage people pair with this.
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Learn moreReady to talk it through?
Get a quote in minutes, or ask Sgt. Savings a straight question first — no pressure, no runaround.
Insurance products described on this page are marketed by The Veteran Alliance, a licensed insurance producer, and underwritten by one or more separately licensed insurance companies, which may include Corgi Insurance Company and its affiliates. The insurer that actually underwrites your policy, its licensing status in your state, and any state-required notices will be identified in your quote and policy documents. Coverage, limits, eligibility, and pricing are determined by the underwriting insurer, may vary by state, and may change. Nothing on this page is a quote, an offer of insurance, a binder, or a guarantee of coverage — coverage takes effect only when a policy is issued.