intl shipping insurance?

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
I am doing international shipping of a single furniture item.

The insurance offered by the shipping company is both for the item and for my shipping charge. I asked about why I would want to insure my shipping charge, and the agent said that in the event of the shipment being destroyed say by an accident, the insurance should cover the cost of the item and the cost of re-shipping.

It seems weird to me to insure the shipping charge - is that normal? The shipping company name is Packimpex.

2
It seems to be standard; I guess for a company sending an order it makes sense to insure the full cost of resending.

Personally I thought it was wrong - the shipping company should pay their own insurance, at least for the charge part - then they have the incentive to avoid any "accidents". I get that these things happen, but would object to paying for a delivery which didn't complete.

3
I agree - if the shipment fails due to accident, the shipping company should have their own insurance. It basically means that they did not deliver the service, which is their responsibility.

I said to the agent that I did not want to insure the shipping charge, only the item, and she said that she would investigate that option, as though it was unusual not to insure shipping charge. Kind of weird...

4
For simple freight like this maybe shipper has own insurance but for bulk marine freight it's differnet....

The owners will have a "General Average" clause in the contract which basically means you will share the costs if there is an accident based on the presumtion that if you hadn't charted the vessel to do the routing agreed upon, vessel would not have been at the place where accident was and therefore accident wouldn't happen. It's also covered partly under the "New Jason" clause.

Archaic, certainly but owners certainly insist it being part of thw charter !

5
For any industry engaging in transports, it should be absolute basic practice to have a general transport insurance. Unfortunately, most businesses and private persons like to skip that... which is no problem, unless there is a problem.

As for insuring the transport charges - this is done to avoid a loss on your sale. It's nice to recover the value of the goods itself, if something goes wrong, but you may still be a couple grand short of the total value, due to various transport or packaging cost.

As you only ship your personal belongings, you'll have to decide yourself, if that makes any sense - otherwise simply advise them the amount to which they shall insure the goods, according to your own calculation.

6
This. I work for a removal company, and we offer insurance for the cost of the shipping, for exactly the reasons stated above.

You can skip it, as others have said, but if something goes wrong and you need to re-ship it, you'll be paying for the shipping again. It is really up to you.

7
Why is it up to the customer to pay again for a service not actually provided?

At a basic level a shipper has one task, get something safely from A to B. Why should the customer pay if that isn't achieved?