Special Delivery insurance

[Simpo Two]

I took a small package to the PO today which needed to go by SD.

'I'd like this to go by Special Delivery' say I, placing it on the scale with a cheery smile.
'How much is it worth?' asks the lady behind the counter.
'How much cover do I get with Special Delivery?'
'How much is it worth?'
OK, I'm getting nowhere.
'Oh, maybe £100'
She punches £100 into her machine.
'How much cover does Special Delivery go up to?' I venture again.
'£500' she replies promptly.
'Oh, so I could have said £500 and then it would be insured for £500?'
'No, you have to prove the value of the item'
'But if I have to claim, the item will have been lost so how can I prove the value?'
'You need the receipt' she says.
'This watch was bought in 1979' I say, 'There is no receipt'.

I didn't continue the debate but clearly things weren't adding up. If you have to prove the value of the contents, why bother asking how much it's worth? What happens if they lose my watch? Even though I stated £100, it doesn't seem that they would pay £100. And why isn't the price more tailored to the value?

Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 3rd January 19:04

[egor110]

The standard cover is £500 if the item is worth more than that you pay a surcharge and the cover goes up £1000 £2500 £5000 £7000 £10.000 they also use max weight in the calculations.
http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/business-deliver...

[Simpo Two]

That makes sense. Their website says 'Use Special Delivery™ and get up to £500 automatic compensation cover for loss or damage.'

I read that as meaning that if they lose (or damage) it I get £500 automatically. So why the cashier's bother about its actual worth, providing receipts yada?

[Blakeatron]

When I have claimed I have had to provide receipts. First one was through ebay so they accepted the paypal receipt.

Second item was a hand made present that I had made, I retail at £300. They finally accepted an invoice drawn up from my business.

It was quite a long process.

[Simpo Two]

Ah, silly me. Yes, I see the words 'up to' now.

Well if they lose it, I shall have a hard time proving that a broken watch is worth anything...




Though I still don't see why the cashier wanted to know a value (unless it was over £500 of course)

[surveyor]

Assuming that you are sending it off for repair they also do (and many PO staff do not know this) incidential loss insurance.

I use this when sending keys through the post. A key is not worth a great deal, but if you have to change the lock as a result of them losing one....

[mmm-five]

I sent some business materials over the Christmas/New Year period that had to be there by 9am next day for a workshop. When they asked if I needed any extra compensation I said it would need to cover the cost of redoing the work - which is a day offsite at a hotel for 5 client & 5 consultants - for about £10k in total for consequential loss. Still only came to about £25 all in, and it was there at about 7:45am the following day.

Now I assume that if this had gone missing, I'd have had to provide proof that the consequential loss was around £10k, but how do you get a client to provide an invoice for taking 5 senior managers out of the office for a day to do a workshop?