The trap inside CIF
CIF looks buyer-friendly — the seller 'handles shipping' — but three things cut the other way. Risk passes at origin loading, so mid-voyage loss is the buyer's insurance claim, under a policy the seller chose at the cheapest permissible cover (ICC(C)). The seller controls carrier and routing, optimising for their cost, not the buyer's transit time. And destination charges are outside CIF: buyers routinely face inflated destination handling fees from the seller's nominated agent — the notorious 'CIF cheap freight, expensive destination' model.
FOB flips control: the buyer's forwarder books the freight, the buyer chooses insurance cover appropriate to the cargo, and destination charges are transparent because the buyer's own agent handles arrival. Sophisticated importers overwhelmingly buy FOB (or FCA for containers) for exactly these reasons.
When CIF makes sense anyway
CIF suits low-value or infrequent shipments where the buyer has no forwarder relationship, sellers with genuinely strong freight buying power on the lane, and letter-of-credit trades where banks want the seller presenting on-board bills plus insurance documents. For forwarders, a customer's CIF/FOB mix is a sales map: FOB buyers control freight on imports (pitch the import side); CIF sellers control it on exports (pitch the export side). Reading Incoterms in an RFQ correctly is the difference between quoting the freight you can win and the freight someone else controls.