Moving Company Insurance Explained

Households who are hiring a moving company to help them through a relocation should always consider what kind of moving company insurance is in place to cover damage to their possessions during the move. There is always the potential for damage to personal possessions during a moving job. Packing items well can cut down on the chances of damage, and interviewing movers thoroughly can also help, but there is always the possibility of items getting defaced or broken in transit.

Is Moving Company Insurance Built Into Your Moving Cost?

In many cases, moving companies do have some kind of insurance built into the cost of a moving job. But is this enough to cover your possessions? Don’t just assume that the insurance included in the moving cost is sufficient to reimburse you if something should happen to your furniture or other goods.

Types of Moving Insurance

Part of the problem with the insurance or reimbursement products that moving companies include is that some don’t stretch very far to cover a real claim. Some of the types of coverage that you may be offered include:

• Declared Value – this kind of compensation system is based on the weight of your possessions
• Lump Sum Value – this kind of valuation assessment takes into account all of your household possessions as a collective value
• Full Coverage – with a full coverage system, loss or damage of your items would be reimbursed according to their actual value

From looking at the above types of moving insurance, you can see that some of them would only pay out pennies on the dollar for the real value of your possessions. Insurance policies that don’t take concrete value totals might pay out on the “actual cash value” or “replacement value” of your goods, but depending on how the insurer calculates value, this still may not give you the dollar amounts you are looking for.

How to Get Sufficient Coverage for Moving Insurance

What financial experts counsel households to do is to actually go through all of their possessions and mark them with fixed prices before contacting a moving company. Items can be put into boxes labeled with a total value. Expensive items like fine art pieces should be individually marked.

After the household preparing for the move has valued all of their objects, they can total up all of those values and request insurance amounts from the mover that corresponds to their tally. This will ensure that those who are moving have taken out adequate insurance for all of their possessions.

More to Think About During a Move

Some experienced movers say that moving households should avoid using items like deductibles to shift the burden for payment back to them. Moving insurance is a one-time policy for a specific event. If anything happens, it’s in the best interests of the household to be covered. Deductibles can bring a payment down, but in a claim situation, the household would still have to pay for amounts involved in the damage of their possessions. A good two-step strategy is to plan for damage prevention up front, and then to also take out full insurance coverage for each expensive item that’s getting shipped, to make sure that any damage will be properly reimbursed.