Insure excavators, cranes and earthmoving plant with Shriram General Insurance through Desi Machines — CPM cover, premium factors, claims and Indian norms.
Shriram General Insurance is the general-insurance arm of the Shriram Group, the financial-services house best known as India’s largest lender to commercial-vehicle owners. The company was incorporated on 28 July 2006 and began writing business in FY2008, working as a joint venture with Sanlam, one of South Africa’s biggest financial groups. Sanlam stepped up its commitment in 2024, taking a majority economic interest of roughly 51%, which gives the insurer a deep international backer alongside a very Indian distribution heritage. It carries IRDAI registration number 137 and runs out of Jaipur.
Reach is one of its strong suits. The insurer works through around 281 branches spread across 26 states, supported by one of the largest agent forces in the private sector and a cashless-garage network of more than 2,000 workshops. For an owner whose machines and trucks move from one district to the next, that footprint matters — there’s usually someone local who can register a loss and get a surveyor moving.
The pitch here is simple: this is an insurer that already understands machines on wheels and machines on tracks. Because the Shriram Group built its name financing commercial vehicles, the company is unusually comfortable with transport- and equipment-heavy customers — the contractor who runs a mix of tippers, mobile cranes and excavators, and needs both motor cover and plant cover under one roof. That’s a practical advantage when a road-going machine needs a motor policy and your site plant needs Contractors’ Plant & Machinery, and you’d rather not juggle two unrelated insurers.
Add a full engineering suite to that, and you get a company that can cover the static crane on a project site, the excavator shifting between jobs, and the dumper that runs on the highway between them. The Sanlam backing gives the balance-sheet comfort you want when a single machine on the schedule can be worth tens of lakhs.
The everyday policy for owned or hired plant is Contractors’ Plant & Machinery (CPM). It responds to sudden, unforeseen physical loss or damage to the machines you list — whether they’re working, sitting idle, or being taken apart for maintenance — from fire and allied perils, theft and burglary, accidental external damage, overturning, and natural events like flood, storm and landslide. Each machine sits on the schedule with its own sum insured, normally set on a current replacement-value basis.
Shriram General offers a notably broad set of add-ons on its CPM, including express and air freight for urgent repairs, owner’s surrounding property, debris removal, additional customs duty, escalation, third-party liability, and earthquake and terrorism extensions. For project work there’s Contractors’ All Risk (CAR) for civil construction and Erection All Risk (EAR) for installation and commissioning, with plant foldable into those covers where it fits. Internal electrical or mechanical failure — which CPM deliberately excludes — is picked up by separate Machinery Breakdown cover, and the suite also runs to Electronic Equipment and Boiler & Pressure Plant insurance. And because of the group’s finance roots, commercial-vehicle motor cover sits right alongside, for the units that need it.
Every plant policy has edges, and it pays to know them before a claim rather than after. CPM doesn’t pay the excess you carry on each loss. It leaves out ordinary wear and tear, rust, corrosion and gradual deterioration, and it excludes consumables and wear-prone parts — tyres, ropes, belts, drill bits, fuel and lubricants. Pure internal breakdown is out unless you’ve added Machinery Breakdown. The policy also won’t respond to overloading or working a machine beyond its rated capacity, wilful negligence, testing, transit between sites without the relevant extension, or war and nuclear risks. And damage to a road-registered vehicle while it’s out on a public road belongs to a motor policy, not to CPM — which is one reason the group’s motor heritage is handy here.
Nobody can hand you a fixed figure without seeing the machine, because the risk drives the price. As a broad guide, annual CPM premiums in India usually fall somewhere between about 0.5% and 1.5% of a machine’s insured value. To put a number on it purely as an illustration, a machine insured for ₹50 lakh might land roughly in the ₹25,000 to ₹75,000 band a year before GST. Where you actually sit turns on the type and age of the machine, the sum insured, where and how it’s worked — hilly, flood-prone, mining and tunnelling sites attract a higher rate — your claims record, the excess you accept, and the add-ons you choose. Pick a higher voluntary excess and the premium eases. The only honest figure is a quote, which is exactly what Desi Machines arranges for you.
If a machine is damaged or stolen, get word to the insurer quickly — within a day or two is the safe rule — and lodge an FIR straight away for theft, burglary or any third-party loss. Shriram General deputes an IRDAI-licensed surveyor to inspect the damage and assess cause and quantum, and you’ll usually get an SMS confirming the surveyor’s appointment. You can intimate a claim on the toll-free lines 1800-300-30000 or 1800-103-3009, and the MYSGI app lets you upload documents and track status online. Keep the paperwork handy: the policy copy, a filled claim form, registration papers where the machine has them, the FIR for theft, repair estimates and bills, and dated photographs along with operating or log records. Where liability is clear, an on-account payment can be released ahead of final settlement so your work isn’t held up.
24×7 claims: 1800-300-30000
A handful of rules apply no matter which insurer you pick. Only IRDAI-registered companies can write these policies, and Shriram General is one of them, with every policy carrying a UIN. The premium attracts 18% GST — the September 2025 GST reform dropped the rate to zero only on individual life and individual health cover, so commercial engineering and motor insurance is still taxed at 18%, though a GST-registered business can usually recover it as input tax credit. If a unit such as a mobile crane, dumper or certain backhoe loaders runs on public roads, the Motor Vehicles Act requires it to be registered and to carry mandatory third-party motor insurance on top of CPM; a machine that stays inside an enclosed site generally doesn’t need that. And because operating heavy plant is hazardous work, an Employees’ Compensation (Workmen’s Compensation) policy is the standard way to cover injury or death to your crew.
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Desi Machines is a facilitator that helps equipment owners connect with IRDAI-registered insurers. We are not an insurer and do not issue policies — cover, eligibility, premium and claim decisions rest with the insurer under its policy terms. Premium figures shown are indicative, not quotes, and 18% GST applies. Please confirm current terms with the insurer before you buy.
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