pmaharshi

Hi.. As we prepare to move to Canada (Ottawa), we are shipping our household goods and wanted to know from those of you who had done this before if taking insurance is mandatory and worth it? Did you have any situations arising in a claim and what is your advise to someone like me?
Many thanks!
P

Hemlock

I took insurance, I had a claim and they still tried to wiggle out of it. Perseverance pays. If sending goods by ocean, marine insurance is different to other insurances. Declaring valuation, the insurer averages the value of each item using mean value, so higher value items may be under insured, e.g. 12 items, total $1200, average value $100 per item.
Marine losses are also subject to 'General Average', which means if any goods are lost off a ship, every shipment owner contributes to that loss, even in the event they themselves did not suffer a loss, e.g. if 12 containers drop off the ship,all the owners of the other containers help pay for that loss, if insured insurance pays this, if not insured, then the owner of the shipments onboard are on the hook for it, proportional to the total of the cargo their shipment represents. This likley does not happen often, but it does happen, such as this in 2021 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...sunk-1.6245797