Courier insurance claims

[casstony]

Has anyone ever had to make an insurance claim due to loss or damage of a package? If so was the courier helpful?

I'm wondering if any of the couriers are reliable in this regard.

[cfranks (Charles)]

The only claim I made was against a courier who shipped my car from Sydney to Adelaide some years ago. They put it on a car-carrier, above the cab and drove under a low bridge. There was a statement on the con-note saying 'we are not a common carrier' which negated any insurance claim! I got nothing!

[casstony]

That's what worries me Charles. I wonder if any of the courier companies ever pay out insurance claims. It's not like car insurance where there are many examples to verify that the company actually treats claims in a reasonable manner.

As kinetic/Steve pointed out in the P&S Woes thread, the companies may stonewall claims unless there's pressure from an industry regulator/ombudsman, or media publicity like Checkout 'F U Tube'.

[casstony]

One advantage of dealing with australia post is that it's covered by the postal industry ombudsman which has a self reported 91% success rate in dispute resolutions. Most other couriers are not covered by the ombudsman.

[Shano592 (Shane)]

Tony, are you referring to an item with additional insurance purchased, or just making a claim against the courier company's liability insurance?

[casstony]

Hi Shane, I'm talking about the extra cover or warranty purchased to protect against loss of a telescope, mount, etc.

[Shano592 (Shane)]

I would be really reluctant to believe anything from a courier company, with regards to insurance.

The way their insurers duck and dodge, sounds suspiciously familiar to the stories one reads about CommInsure, in their present management style.

I haven't claimed against itinerant consignments, but I have claimed against AusPost (successfully), and StarTrack, when they were their own entity. That was a tooth pulling exercise too, and we had an account manager. In the end, I got 900 of the 1800 dollars I felt were outstanding, and I kept the Zebra label printer when we walked away from the account. Haven't used that since though.

We now keep an insurance broker on speed dial for work. They cover our containers coming out of China, should one go overboard. I would be looking this way as well, if I had an expensive mount/scope/eyepiece that needed to travel far away for repairs.

Fortunately, Bintel is pretty close, and Don is a maestro under the bonnet of a Meade scope. I know it will get the care it needs from this side of the Pacific.