indemnity

Undertaking given to compensate for (or to provide protection against) injury, loss, incurred penalties, or from acontingent liability. A shipping company, for example, will ask for a bank's indemnity for releasing a shipment to a consignee who has lost original shipping documents. The bank in turn will require the consignee to sign acounter-indemnity before issuing its indemnity to the shipping company. This way the consignee gets therelease of shipment in completion of a transaction, and both the shipping company and the bank are protected in case some dispute arises out of that transaction. See also letter of indemnity.