Weekends and holidays sound like a quiet, safe time to ship valuables. AIG and Chubb say close to the opposite. If you are booking high value cargo shipping near a long weekend, the useful question is where the load will be sitting on Saturday morning, and who is around to look at it.
Time at rest
Verisk CargoNet split its Labor Day numbers by day. Over the holiday periods of 2021 to 2025 it logged 273 incidents in the US. The long weekend was the quiet part (24 on Saturday, 28 on Sunday, 27 on the Monday). The Thursday, Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday around it took 194, which is 71%: 46, 55, 49 and 44. CargoNet reads the pattern as consistent with deceptive pickups, which need live staff and working phones, and describes two overlapping risks: loaded freight sitting at rest while sites close, and thin staffing that makes it easier to pass as a trusted carrier. These are raw counts. Nobody divided them by how much freight moved, so they say when thefts were reported and not how dangerous a single load is.
US cargo theft incidents by day over five Labor Day periods (Verisk CargoNet, 273 in total). The four weekdays around the holiday took 194, or 71%.
Insurers writing about high value cargo transportation talk about dwell time. AIG’s guidance for high value theft targeted cargo says to minimize or eliminate transit over weekends and holidays, with the caveat that risk by day of the week varies by country and region. It also sets a bar for yard storage: no dropped loads over a weekend or holiday unless shipper and carrier signed off on the place, and the yard has bonded guards, fencing, bright lighting and live CCTV. Chubb’s cargo tips (the transit edition is dated November 2016) put it in terms of departures. Avoid air and road shipments late in the week, since goods are then likelier to sit in a sort center, hub or terminal over the weekend with less supervision.
For freight worth stealing, a slower departure that never sits parked over a weekend beats a faster one that does.
Chubb’s list for cutting the wait is short. Door to door, with no transfers. Time-definite service where it is available. Goods reaching the airport or seaport close to closeout, which is the carrier’s cut-off for a given flight or vessel. For shipping high value goods internationally, Chubb also says to book air freight on a specific flight and to clear customs quickly.
The truck that comes early
Travelers counts fictitious pickups at 66 a year on average in 2012 to 2022, then 576 in 2023. The method it describes starts with inside information about scheduled pickups, paid for, gathered by planted warehouse staff or hacked. The criminals arrive ahead of the real carrier, often in vehicles carrying fraudulent logos, and the staff hand over the cargo. By the time the real carrier arrives, the goods are often unrecoverable.
CargoNet’s Q2 2026 report (US and Canada) shows the balance moving. Events classed as theft dropped from 488 to 378 year on year, fictitious pickups only from 165 to 158 (a quarterly count, unlike Travelers’ annual one), and business email compromise was the main way in for many of the quarter’s most sophisticated schemes.
That puts cargo theft prevention effort at the gate. AIG wants tractor, trailer and driver identified in advance, nothing released to anyone not on that list, and a photo of the driver’s license or company ID. FMCSA adds two checks for US freight: match the truck that shows up to the contract, and verify broker and carrier phone numbers in SAFER, calling the posted one if yours differs. Insurance certificates can be forged too, FMCSA warns.
New carriers are the hard case. Chubb’s fictitious pickup tips from 2020 say to vet every trucking company: three references, at least a year of operating authority, and a certificate of insurance obtained from the insurer itself. A year may not be enough. The CLECAT guide on identity-based cargo theft describes shell haulers that work honestly for one or two years before the fraud, and one company, registered two years earlier, that disappeared with a pharmaceutical load. CLECAT’s warning signs are a new firm, a generic email domain, pressure to skip checks, last-minute changes to pickup or delivery, and a price that looks too good. One sign alone may mean nothing. A serious inconsistency, or several small ones, should hold the cargo until a designated person or function has checked, and any changed instruction gets confirmed on a channel you verified yourself. CargoNet’s July 4 tips for brokers agree on price: a trucker who takes an undesirable load below the going rate may be setting you up.
What is high value cargo, and what goes on the truck
Start with the definition, because high value cargo shipping covers a narrower set of goods than the price tag suggests. AIG’s HVTT category means cargo that is high value, easy enough to handle and sellable on the illicit market. Its Level 1 examples include pharmaceuticals, phones, tablets and laptops, cigarettes, artwork, antiquities, gold, precious stones. Chubb has no definition and notes only that the odds of theft don’t depend on the product.
For the vehicle, AIG asks for carriers the shipper already knows and no subcontracting unless the subcontractor is screened too. It lists hard-sided trailers and, for loads above $500,000, a covert tracker inside the cargo. A monitoring center should confirm position every five minutes or less on a geofenced route, with an alarm on deviation. Full truckloads get an ISO 17712 tamper-evident seal. The seal number goes on the shipping documents and gets checked on delivery.
Paperwork matters as much. Chubb wants documents generic as far as the law allows, and values, customer, destination and carrier shown only to people who need them.
Where Navo fits
Navo can track your containers across ocean carriers and track air cargo by 11-digit air waybill number, which gives you status and what the carrier reports. For high value cargo security, the trackers, monitoring and seals from AIG’s list are things you arrange with your carrier and insurer.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fictitious pickup in cargo theft?
A fictitious pickup is when criminals pose as a legitimate carrier, often using a stolen or cloned carrier identity, and collect the load from the shipper's dock with apparently valid paperwork. The goods leave through the front gate, so nothing looks wrong until the real carrier arrives or the consignee asks where the freight is.
Is it safer to ship valuable goods over a weekend?
Usually not. Insurers such as AIG and Chubb warn that loads parked over weekends and holidays are the ones most exposed, because yards are quieter and fewer people notice a missing trailer. A departure that keeps moving or arrives before the weekend is generally the safer choice.
Does cargo insurance cover theft of high value goods?
Most all-risks cargo policies cover theft, but insurers often attach conditions for high value loads: approved carriers, no unattended parking, secure seals, sometimes tracking. If those conditions are breached, a claim can be reduced or refused, so read the security clauses before the goods ship.