The bay is shelter

Northgate Hub insures the goods small and mid-sized businesses ship. We started in Trondheim in 2010 and opened in Hamburg in 2012. The US head office has been at the Port of Oakland since 2017. Today 1,500 specialists in 16 offices do one thing: make sure a lost or broken shipment does not sink a small company.

Why a bay

Nord is north; våg is a bay. Along the Norwegian coast a bay is where boats tie up when the weather turns: water calm enough to unload, close enough to home to sleep. We named the company for that feeling, because it is what a shipper wants from insurance: somewhere the goods are safe while everything around them is not.

Most losses we pay are small and ordinary: a carton of mugs dropped at a sort hub, a jersey order that never reached the porch, a pallet of frozen food left too long on a dock, a bike frame dented under its foam. None of them make the news, and each one can wipe out a month’s margin for a small business.

Trondheim, Hamburg, Oakland

The first Northgate Hub office insured fish exporters and furniture makers shipping out of Trondheim, and the policies were written short enough to read at a kitchen table. Hamburg followed in 2012 as our clients started buying from across Europe. In 2017 we moved our US head office to Oakland, where a growing share of them were bringing goods in from Asia through the port.

We now insure around $2.0 billion of cargo a year on more than 120 trade lanes. The client list now runs to ceramics studios, apparel brands, bike shops, and food producers, and the policy still fits on a few pages.

Where we are

Sixteen offices, one phone number

Claims handlers and surveyors sit near the ports and parcel hubs our clients use, from Hamburg to the Oakland waterfront. Wherever the shipment went wrong, someone nearby can go and look at it.

16 Offices

1500 Specialists

95% Claims settled in 30 days

How we work

Five habits we keep

Written down so you can check us against them. They are why clients renew, and why now and then we tell someone we are not the right insurer for them.

Price it honestly

We quote the risk you have, in plain numbers. If your shipments are unusual and the price would not make sense for you, we say so before you fill in a form.

Look at the box

For a broken order we ask for photos and the invoice. For a pallet or a container, someone from Northgate Hub goes to see it.

Keep the policy short

If a shop owner cannot read the cover in one sitting, we have failed at the first job. Every clause is rewritten until it is clear.

Pick up the phone

The loss line is staffed 24 hours a day, every day, because a driver drops a parcel on a Saturday too.

Pay before we argue

95% of claims close within 30 days. We pay you first and settle with the carrier afterwards, so you can restock and keep shipping.

We wanted to build the insurer we could not find for our own neighbours in Trondheim: one that covered the small maker as carefully as the shipping line, and explained itself in a page. Sixteen offices later, the policy is still a few pages.
Founding team, Northgate Hub

Talk to someone who insures businesses like yours

Tell us what you make, how much you ship, who carries it, and where it goes. We will reply with cover you can read over a coffee.

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