How important is transit insurance when moving homes

Before we go in to details of positives and negatives of transit insurance, let’s just see, what is transit insurance, transit insurance is the sum of an amount insured for the goods or belongings that are in transit, people opt for this when they are moving homes or moving their belongings longer distances, specially interstate or international.

Moving homes or businesses is always challenging , ticking all the boxes is very important before you let any professional removalist company to handle your furniture , there are several removalists operating Australia wide with a mix of registered and unregistered licenses. Some of them offer protection cover for your belongings and some of them simply would not do it. For instance, if you are someone moving from Sydney to Canberra, and you need your expensive pieces of equipment to be relocated without any wear and tear, you may want to look for removalists that can offer protection cover to the items. It’s an expensive affair for a business to have transit insurance, as the premiums can vary from few thousands of dollars to many thousands, depending on the cover they offer to the end customer. With being one of the largest revenue contributors to the Australian transport division, moving industry is always in the lime light for wrong reasons, especially because of several un-registered or backyard operators ripping the customers off.

Within the removalist industry, we have local, interstate and international providers servicing customers Australia wide. Local providers are the ones with higher in number operating down under with large ratio of complaints from the customers, where in interstate and international are only few in number, but the risks are the same. Because of the wide diversity within the industry, regulatory bodies like AFRA or the Australian government body itself are still finding it hard to completely eradicate the problem or the stigma attached to the industry. For example, when we compare a few interstate removalist companies, they all use separate methods to transport household or business belongings, some of them use shipping containers & some companies use traditional trucks to haul. There are outliers who are quite adept if you need help moving your furniture or large pieces like that, but they are the exception. Furthermore, using self-pack shipping containers to move furniture has become a trend, as it allows the end customer to save money and time compared to a regular furniture mover. With this option, you are only paying for the movement of the container & not for the people or removalist staff involved in it. They follow a simple three-step rule, deliver, load, move and unpack.

But in both types, transit insurance plays a major role, some interstate & international movements could take several days to delivery to the new address. Longer the distance longer it takes for you to receive your belongings. Insurance companies like Allianz claims that claim rates have been on the rise than ever before, removalist companies operating in cities like Melbourne and Sydney are the beneficiaries of these claims, with them having to pass on these claim amounts to the end customer. Insurance companies claim that, lot of the times it’s the mismanagement by the removalists when it comes to longer distance movements, but some of them are passing with flying colours when it comes to delivering a non-damaged shipment to the customer. Looking at the stats released by the government, everyone is advised to double before booking their movement. Proper research is very crucial in selecting a furniture moving company; there is lot of tools available for the households. Several online communities are helping people to connect to the right provider and most of the times families, friends are the best referees in referring a right removalist.

Do you need to pay extra to obtain this moving insurance when you book your move? Absolutely not, most of the companies are including free moving insurance in the overall quote price; some shonky providers still try to find a way to charge you more! At the end of the day, when you do your research properly and ask all the relevant questions, you can get away with fair deal on your movement. Opt for moving insurance to protect your contents from any theft or damage before they delivered to your new address. Same applies to international movements, but the charges vary depending on the country you are moving to.