What Is CMR Insurance in Türkiye?

What Does a CMR Policy Actually Cover?

The policy takes its name from the international instrument governing the carriage contract: the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road, signed in Geneva on 19 May 1956 and known by its French abbreviation, CMR.

Türkiye acceded to both the 1956 Convention and the Protocol of 5 July 1978 by Law No. 3939, adopted on 7 December 1993 and published in the Official Gazette of 14 December 1993, issue 21788. The instrument of accession was deposited with the United Nations on 2 August 1995. That double accession matters, because the 1978 Protocol changes the unit in which the compensation limit is calculated.

The subject of the policy is not the cargo itself but the carrier's obligation. CMR insurance does not indemnify the sender's or the consignee's goods; it responds to the claim brought against the carrier. RYL Sigorta Aracılık Hizmetleri is an insurance agency: we prepare quotations from the insurers we act for, while the policy is issued and any indemnity is paid by the insurance company.

Article 1 draws the scope narrowly. A carriage falls under the CMR only when all of the following hold.

• The carriage is for reward and performed by a road vehicle.
• The place of taking over and the place designated for delivery are in two different countries.
• At least one of those countries is a contracting party; both need not be.
• Carriage performed under international postal conventions is excluded.
• Funeral consignments are excluded.
• Furniture removals are excluded.

When Is the Carrier Liable and When Is It Relieved?

Article 17 sets liability broadly: the carrier is liable for total or partial loss of the goods and for damage occurring between the time it takes over the goods and the time of delivery. Delay in delivery gives rise to liability on the same footing.

The escape routes are narrow. The carrier is relieved where the loss, damage or delay was caused by the wrongful act or neglect of the claimant, by instructions given by the claimant, by inherent vice of the goods, or by circumstances the carrier could not avoid. Article 18 places the burden of proving these on the carrier.

Article 17(4) then lists the special risks. Where loss or damage results from one of them the carrier is relieved, and where the circumstances point to such a risk the loss is presumed to have arisen from it. The claimant keeps the right to prove otherwise.

• Use of open unsheeted vehicles, where that use was agreed and expressly recorded in the consignment note
• Absence or defective condition of packing for goods that by their nature are liable to wastage or damage when not packed properly
• Handling, loading, stowage or unloading of the goods by the sender, the consignee or persons acting for them
• The nature of the goods themselves: breakage, rust, decay, desiccation, ordinary wastage, moth or vermin
• Insufficiency or inadequacy of marks or numbers on the packages
• Carriage of livestock

Why Is Compensation Capped at 8.33 SDR per Kilogram?

Compensation is calculated by reference to the value of the goods at the place and time at which they were accepted for carriage. Value is fixed first by the commodity exchange price, failing that by the current market price, and failing both by the normal value of goods of the same kind and quality.

The original text capped that compensation at 25 gold francs per kilogram. The 1978 Protocol replaced Article 23(3) with a new rule: compensation shall not exceed 8.33 units of account per kilogram of gross weight short. The unit of account is the Special Drawing Right as defined by the International Monetary Fund. Because Türkiye is party to both instruments, the operative limit for carriage to and from Türkiye is 8.33 SDR, not gold francs.

The cap is not absolute. Against an agreed surcharge, the sender may declare in the consignment note a value exceeding the limit, or may declare a special interest in delivery. And where the damage was caused by the carrier's wilful misconduct, or by default treated as equivalent by the court seised of the case, the carrier loses the benefit of the limitation provisions entirely.

For a purely domestic Turkish carriage, the Turkish Commercial Code (Türk Ticaret Kanunu) applies instead. The two regimes converge on the cargo limit and diverge on delay.

Is Cargo Insurance the Same Thing as CMR Insurance?

It is not. Marine cargo insurance (Emtia Nakliyat Sigortası) protects the party with an interest in the goods and answers for the loss within the policy scope. CMR insurance protects the carrier and engages only to the extent the carrier is held legally liable.

Article 41 hardens that distinction. Any stipulation that directly or indirectly derogates from the Convention is null and void, and in particular any clause assigning to the carrier the benefit of the insurance of the goods, or shifting the burden of proof, has no effect. A carriage contract therefore cannot route the cargo policy's benefit to the carrier. The existence of a cargo policy does not release the carrier, and the cargo insurer that pays may exercise recourse against the liable carrier.

In practice the two policies sit side by side: the cargo interest insures the goods, the carrier insures its own liability.

Is CMR Insurance Compulsory in Türkiye?

Not as a matter of law. Articles 18 to 24 of the Road Transport Law (Karayolu Taşıma Kanunu No. 4925), which had established a compulsory road carriage liability insurance, were repealed by article 17 of Law No. 6704 on 14 April 2016. The term liability insurance in that law's definitions now points to the compulsory motor third party liability cover under the Highway Traffic Law No. 2918, that is, to trafik sigortası.

In the Road Transport Regulation the insurance obligation attaches to passenger carriage. The regulation requires compulsory motor third party liability cover together with the compulsory seat personal accident insurance for road passenger transport, and forbids dispatching a vehicle without them. No compulsory policy is prescribed for goods carriage against loss of or damage to the cargo. Dangerous goods carriage does carry its own compulsory liability insurance, but under its general conditions that policy answers for bodily injury and material damage suffered directly by third parties, and it is valid only inside Türkiye. It does not meet loss of the cargo carried and does not stand in for CMR cover.

Not being compulsory does not make the policy optional in commercial terms. Liability arises from the contract and from the Convention, not from a statutory duty to insure. Cargo interests, customs brokers and foreign counterparties routinely require evidence of cover by contract.

One further point deserves attention. The general conditions published by SEDDK, the Turkish insurance and pensions regulator, contain no standard wording for carrier liability. Unlike motor own damage, fire or employer's liability, a CMR policy is shaped largely by the insurer's own special conditions. Wordings therefore differ materially between insurers and have to be read line by line.

What Deadlines Run After a Loss?

The Convention gathers the time limits that can extinguish a claim in articles 30 and 32. These run independently of the policy: the insurance can only respond if the underlying right under transport law has been preserved.

• Apparent loss or damage: the consignee must give the carrier notice at the time of delivery.
• Loss or damage not apparent: written notice within seven days of delivery, Sundays and public holidays excluded.
• Delay in delivery: no compensation is payable unless written notice is given within twenty-one days of the goods being placed at the consignee's disposal.
• Time bar: one year, extended to three years in the case of wilful misconduct or default treated as equivalent by the court.
• Jurisdiction: the contracting-state court agreed by the parties, or the courts of the defendant's principal place of business, branch or agency, or of the place of taking over or designated delivery.
• Interest: the claimant may claim interest at 5% per annum, running from the date the written claim was sent to the carrier.

An Agency View: Questions Before Binding Cover

Two misconceptions come up repeatedly at the agency desk. The first is that the cargo policy shelters the carrier; article 41 disposes of that. The second is that a high policy limit means the cargo value will be paid; the per-kilogram cap in article 23 disposes of that. The policy limit sets the ceiling, while the weight rule squeezes the payable amount from below.

The underwriting questions are few but decisive: the nature of the goods and their value per kilogram, the routes run, annual carriage turnover, whether tractor units are owned or hired, whether sub-contracted carriers are used, and whether a declared value will be entered in the consignment note. For high value-to-weight cargo the 8.33 SDR ceiling bites early, and declared value or a separate cargo policy becomes a distinct conversation.

As RYL Sigorta Aracılık Hizmetleri we prepare quotations from the insurers we act for and set the special conditions side by side so the differences are visible. The policy is issued, and any indemnity paid, by the insurance company. You can reach us through the quotation form for marine and transport lines.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Turkish Grand National Assembly — Law No. 3939, CMR and the 1978 Protocol
• Turkish Commercial Code (6102) — carriage of goods
• Road Transport Law (4925)
• Road Transport Regulation
• SEDDK — published insurance general conditions
• United Nations Treaty Collection — CMR status of parties

This article is for information only; the scope of cover is set by the policy’s specific and general terms.