The Importance Of Insurance

I'm sure by now all of you have seen the video of the Fed Ex courier throwing the computer monitor over the fence. As a result, the buyer's item was damaged.



As a seller, I am horrified that this happened. I pay good money for a service and expect my item to arrive in one piece. Unfortunately, not all the bubble wrap in the world can protect your item if the mailman simply does not care. For this reason you need to protect yourself with the purchase of insurance. This way if your item is damaged in transit, you or your buyer are not out of money.

Purchasing insurance through the post office can be quite pricey and does not cover the cost of shipping. Therefore, I insure my items through Ship Savers. You can find this right in Ebay under applications. My friend Jessica wrote a post on this topic. You can read it here.

If you do have to file a claim, it is relatively simple and you can get your money in less than a week. Remember my beautiful owl lamps? I sold the one on the left back in November.

I shipped it all the way to California. I'm in Wisconsin. I foam wrapped each individual owl, then bubble wrapped each one and then bubble wrapped the whole lamp. It looked like a mummy. I was pretty confident this would make it on its journey in one piece. The package weighed 26 pounds so I wasn't worried about anyone throwing it over a fence. Unfortunately, since it was so heavy, I believe along the way some careless, lazy person just pushed it off their truck. Here is how it arrived at my buyer's house.

Looking at those pictures makes me sick to my stomach. I feel sorry for the buyer and upset that my favorite lamp was handled so recklessly. Luckily I had a cooperative buyer and the insurance settled quickly. I did receive positive feedback with a simple thanks. I'm glad my item was insured.