Insuring Your Goods for your move
Introduction
There are two things to learn about insurance for your household goods when shipping them:
The first is you will have to value your goods at the replacement value in your new country
The second rule is, do not undervalue your goods!
If you do undervalue your goods, the insurance company will think that because you undervalued it that you will take a percentage of the risk.
For example if you value your goods at £5,000 where the actual value should be £10,000 the insurance house will only pay 50% of any claim. So if you want to save money, rather take a higher excess than undervaluing your goods.
The usual amount you will have to pay will be in the region of 1.5% to 3.5% of the total replacement value. Your shipping company will usually help you with the insurance but you will have to find the replacement prices for each item yourself.
Valuation of your goods
To value your goods we suggest you do the following:
- Create an insurance valuation form by listing all the goods you will be taking with you. Do this by going through each room in your house and writing down the contents.
- Find an online store in your country you are going to move to and get the prices for the articles you have listed.
- If you cannot find the price then estimate it in Rands, add 50% and then convert that amount into the currency of your new country. An example is: New price = R100, add 50% = R150, convert to US$ by dividing it by 10 = $15.Please note that this is not scientific but just an estimation.
If you have a question that has not been answered in this section then please ask the community in our relocation forums:
