This article is part of a set of 3 articles. Please also read The Large Risks Insurance and The All Risks Insurance

All European transport companies are required by current legislation to adhere to what we normally know as CMR insurance or ‘carrier insurance’ (often incorrectly referred to as ‘insurance for goods in transit’), which in its simplest form requires the carrier to accept liability for around 1 Euro per KG (GBP 0.91 per KG). This may be acceptable for a packet of socks but certainly not for a violin, or a parcel containing the 16 glasses of a dinner set. The reason this requirement is so ‘poor’ is that it applies to all goods transported, be they shipments of fruit, building materials, electronics, raw materials for the manufacturing industry, etc. The monetary value for this mandatory policy is therefore relatively low.

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To circumvent the ‘poverty’ of carrier insurance, all reputable moving companies offer customers the opportunity to take out a separate policy with a dedicated booking agent. These brokers tend to specialise only on removal shipments, or at most also on removal of artwork. And there are very few booking agents that handle removal shipments globally. These companies are very attentive to the needs of the moving industry and their customers and, in turn, ‘translate’ the peculiarities of our industry for the underwriters (Lloyds, Swiss, Generali, etc).

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Since all shipments are different, it is up to the mover to assign a value to them. Unfortunately, there can be no single format, nor a surplus proportional to the cost or size of the removal. Simply, because: a mover will only handle a large removal when the relative cost of the move is high, but the actual value of the goods shipped is relatively low (think of the value of IKEA furniture, for example); and then, the next day, deal with a small shipment of two or three large-value goods (antiques, for this example). Then the insurance company has to contact the mover to find out what to cover.

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Simplifying again: a move in which a Picasso is to be moved cannot be insured for the same value as a shipment of framed posters alone. Therefore, the cost of the policy logically cannot always be the same. And since insurance booking agents cannot be aware of all shipments in advance, they will have to contact the movers to find out what they are moving. The tool used in this case is the insurance form.

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They come in all shapes and sizes, but tend to be simple excel spreadsheet templates that, when printed, become a 2 to 4 page long document that is very easy to read. It will usually take between 15 and 30 minutes for the mover to complete it, without too much trouble, as long as it is done before the move, and before all the belongings are packed up and become indistinguishable.

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Insurance policies for removals are generally divided into two broad categories: ‘All Risks’ and ‘Large Risks’ (sometimes referred to as ‘basic risk’ or ‘increased risk’). We will see below a general overview of these two policies.

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This article is part of a set of 3 articles. We also invite you to read The Large Risks Insurance and The All Risks Insurance.