In this episode, Mariette Frey discusses the critical differences between valuation coverage and moving insurance, emphasizing the importance of understanding what each option entails when moving. She explains the types of coverage available, including released value protection and full value protection, and highlights the necessity of obtaining additional moving insurance for better protection of personal belongings. The conversation also covers tips for ensuring a smooth moving experience, such as taking inventory and understanding insurance policies.
Chapters –
- 00:00 Introduction to Valuation Coverage vs. Insurance
- 03:13 Understanding Valuation Coverage
- 05:59 Exploring Full Value Protection
- 08:46 The Importance of Moving Insurance
- 11:59 Choosing the Right Insurance Provider
- 15:09 Tips for a Smooth Moving Experience
- 17:49 Final Thoughts and Resources
Mariette Frey is a relocation strategist, life coach, and host of the Moving Tips + Tricks podcast. Every week on Smart Move Monday: Coach Mariette’s Corner, she offers free coaching to help listeners move with clarity and confidence. Check out her favorite tools, trusted show sponsors, and more at www.decidingtomove.com. Free spots are limited — coaching roster opens soon!
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Moving Company Insurance Options
Valuation Coverage Vs. Insurance: A Comprehensive Guide
Introduction to Valuation Coverage Vs. Insurance
Welcome back to the show, everyone. I have a very sexy topic for you. It is valuation coverage versus insurance. I’ve got to tell you, this is like my sixtieth time recording it. Legitimately, I think my seventh, the first couple of times I recorded it, wasn’t great. I finally got it really good, and the mic was muted. That was a fun one. I literally had to get up and walk away because I was like, “This is crazy.”
I did it one more time, and I tested the mic out, and it was awful. I don’t know if I was like too close to the mic or if I used the same mic that I was using when I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, but for some reason, it is just not working for me here in the new house. I promise you. I will find an alternate. I’m going to a studio tomorrow, an actual production studio, D. Hudson Productions up in Elgin, Illinois, is going to be helping me with my intro and my outro. A good friend of mine from college. Awesome guy.
If you need to produce anything, he’s actually amazing. I might have to have him produce my podcast for a while. I want you to picture this. I want you to picture that you just moved into your new house, you’re excited, you’re exhausted, and slightly delirious from surviving basically the most chaotic game of Tetris you’ve ever played with your furniture. You rip open a box labeled fragile, and boom, like your favorite mic, I cannot even talk. Your favorite mug is broken into a million pieces.
It’s the one that got you through every Monday morning for the last couple of years. It’s now in more pieces than your sanity from dealing with your movers. At that moment, you think, “No big deal. I’ll just file a claim for my wonderful sentimental mug.” Did you actually get insurance, or did you just assume the moving company would cover something if it broke?
That’s what we’re going to talk about. A spoiler alert. Depending on which one you get, if you have a hundred-pound TV that falls off the back of a truck, it’s going to bank you about $60 because that’s $0.60 a pound. They don’t go by how much you are actually paying for whatever it is you are paying to replace it. We’re going to talk into a lot of that stuff because a lot of movers have free coverage, which is great, but it’s not going to basically get you a family of four, any type of Starbucks drinks.
Diving into the world of valuation coverage versus moving insurance. One of them is going to protect your stuff, and the other one’s going to make you cry into that broken mug I just talked about. We’re going to break down the differences, how to actually get your money’s worth. Where to find insurance that won’t leave you staring at a shattered TV. Talk about all the cool things, like insurance and coverage.
Understanding Valuation Coverage
Moving is stressful enough without any type of financial heartbreak added to it, and this is a big one. Let’s go through this. I do have some notes, so if you hear some papers rustling around. This is one that I don’t talk about every day. I want to make sure I get it right for you. What is valuation coverage? The valuation coverage is not insurance. Let’s just start there.
It is the moving company’s stated liability for your belongings while they have them, which means while they’re in storage, while they’re on their truck, while they have them. It’s basically like that. “Maybe I totally broke that moment.” That’s basically what it is, except it’s like pretty weak unless you upgrade it.
There are two main types of valuation coverage. One is Released Value Protection, RVP. It’s basically, in my opinion, the free but useless option. This is like the default coverage that moving companies offer. It costs nothing for you. It’s included, but it only pays you out $0.60 per pound per item. If something breaks or goes missing, which often does happen if you’re doing long-distance moves, because you’re never really just the only person on a truck.
If you have, say, a three-bedroom house that’s maybe 1,600 to 2,000 square feet, you’re always going to be sharing a load or a semi with somebody else. Unless you are fortunate enough to have a 26-foot moving truck with just your stuff on it, you are likely going to be sharing a load if you’re crossing many states, which is called an interstate move.
I always remember those, like I have to take the interstate to get to Indiana from Illinois. That’s interstate. If it’s intrastate, remember back in the like, I don’t know, it was like early 2000s, we called it the intranet when you worked in a corporate office and you had to go to basically what’s now SharePoint. That was called the intranet. I think of that as your inner interstate. In the state that you live in, move, or intrastate or interstate, which is leaving your state and going over state lines.
Released Value Protection. Yes, like I said, the free but useless option. There’s full value protection. I would say it’s a better but not free option. You’re going to pay extra for this coverage, but it’s better than nothing. The moving company is responsible for repairing, replacing, or reimbursing you for the lost or damaged items. If you’re only going to do evaluation protection, that’s the one you want to do.
Exploring Full Value Protection
As I mentioned, you could be sharing a load with another couple of families. Sometimes it’s two families. Sometimes it’s just you and another family. Essentially, they will have to oftentimes take your stuff off the truck and hold it somewhere. Because I think they have like six weeks to get your stuff to you, even if they tell you it’s coming in three days, like they legally have like six weeks to hold your stuff.
Keep that in mind when you’re packing and putting things in your car. You never ever want to put something super valuable in a truck. You always want to keep that stuff like grandma’s jewelry. Your Nike Air Jordan Collection. You want to put the stuff that is worth something in the car with you. Now, one of the things I do when I’m moving, and like I said, I’m going to take a break on moving. I don’t think I’m going to do it for a long time.
One of the things that I do both when I get to my new house and when I’m leaving right before I pack up a house is I go around to every single room and take pictures of everything. I open the closet doors, I take pictures, I open cabinet doors, I take pictures. I take pictures of what’s on the wall. I go into my file cabinets, I take pictures, I do a video of every room, everything. I open linen closets, the Garage, like you just take a slow-mo video because here’s why.
You probably don’t have the receipt for something you bought five years ago. It’s probably still worth something, maybe, but if it’s missing and you have full value protection, you have to prove that you had it. You cannot just say like, “I had this, $10,000 Nike Air Jordan collection.” They want to see it in the box. The fine print sometimes doesn’t cover everything. There are usually limits or deductibles that full value protection offers.
Even with the best intentions, movers can still misplace things. Share on XYou really want to make sure that you have some proof that you had that item, and the way to do it is through pictures if you don’t have the receipt. If the truck falls over and you have all of your file cabinet stuff, like I said, don’t put anything with your important documents, like your birth certificate, anything with your social security on, like your taxes, or anything. Do not put that on a truck because multiple hands could be touching this.
The Importance Of Moving Insurance
I will tell you, I work with some of the best movers in the industry, and they are ethical guys. Some of them are not. There’s an episode that I did with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s division chief. She was amazing, and she talked all about the moving crime rings. That is an actual thing where people will steal things off the trucks.
In most cases, if you do what I tell you to do, which we’ll get into in an episode about how to pick a mover and how to vet them out, make sure they’re not scam artists. Even with some of the good guys, things happen. They get on a truck, and they pile. It’s like the best game of Tetris. If you’re a Tetris fan like me, it’s amazing. They’ll pack everything on the truck to the ceiling of the semi.
If they are moving your stuff out and they accidentally grab something from the other wall, they may not have a partition that says, “This is family A, this is family B. They just had it all up against each other.” You don’t happen to see that, for instance, like what happened to me, Frank, and his crew. Probably the worst mover I’ve ever worked with. I don’t know that I’ll ever go into that story.
I even have a video of him screaming at me, that my brother felt so compelled to video because he was crazy. The glass top that you put over my long dresser was on there. My long dresser is something from like the 19th, it’s like a mid-century modern dresser that has been in my stepmom’s family for a generation, because it was a friend of a friend that. Long story short.
I have to get it custom-made now, and someone at some point in time, because it was in my guest bedroom, put a glass of water on the dresser, and it left a huge ring. Now I have to get the whole thing refinished, which I should probably do anyway, because it’s it’s in desperate need of a makeover.
The point of my story is that even if they have the best intentions, things could go missing. If they drop your stuff off in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they’re on their way to Florida, they are not going to turn around and try and dig through their load to find my last hop that I desperately wish I had now. I still haven’t gotten a new one made.
Anyway, I know I promised shorter episodes this season, so we’re going to get back into it. Release Value Protection is the free but useless option. That’s the one they could see that $0.60 per pound per item. The full value protection is a better but not free option that you pay extra for the coverage, and the moving company is responsible for repairing, replacing, or reimbursing you for that lost or damaged item if you can prove that you have it.
Now you’re probably thinking like, “Wait, that’s not enough protection for me and my stuff.” Yeah, you’re probably right. If you have like a fancy espresso machine or a collection of vintage vinyl, that’s probably not going to be enough. That’s why you might need actual moving insurance. The second part of the segment is literally talking about a separate policy that you can purchase from an actual insurance company dedicated to moving insurance.
Choosing The Right Insurance Provider
It actually covers your stuff. Unlike valuation coverage, which is just like the movers’ liability, the insurance company pays you back on your actual losses. This is a real-life thing. A lot of people don’t know about it. It’s not based on some random per-pound formula, which I love. You can buy it through third-party moving providers or third-party insurance providers. I would say some of the better options out there, I will tell you, I have no affiliation with any of these companies unless they want to sponsor me.
I would love for them to reach out and sponsor me because I do talk about them. Baker International is one of them. They do great domestic and international moves. They offer replacements at cost for the coverage. There’s MovingInsurance.com, which covers household goods, electronics, and high-value items. Keep that in mind when I said electronics, because sometimes these insurance companies, in the fine print or in the policy details, will say that it excludes electronics or fragile items, or anything you yourself pack. Keep that in mind. You have to ask a lot of questions.
This is not like the travel insurance that you get when you’re booking your flight, because what if you get COVID again, even though it’s been three years, we still, for whatever reason, think about that. You want to check the policy details on this because this is everything you own. Keep that in mind. I talked about Baker International, MovingInsurance.com, Relocation Insurance Group, RIG.
They actually are unique because they insure specialty items. Like pianos, artwork, jewelry, all that stuff. You’re not going to put a piano in your car, but I would again strongly suggest that if it’s worth a lot of money in jewelry, whatever. You want to put that in the car with you, where you have eyes on it. If you go into a hotel for the night, if you’re driving a long distance, make sure you bring that stuff with you. Grab a cart, bring it in there with you.
You just want to make sure you have that because I’ve even heard of scams, not even scams. I’ve heard of people with a U-Haul sitting in a parking lot at a hotel, and someone actually just takes it off the hitch because they’re super light, even with the stuff in it. They put it on their own truck and they drive away with it. I have heard people just lifting things. You don’t know who’s staying at the hotel, who has the U-Haul to break the lock.
They go in and lift it up. They take everything and put it in their cars. You’ll never know any difference. You’re not going to question that because it could be their U-Haul. There are a lot of different things that happen that you need to protect your stuff. This next one is E-move Insurance, which is what you want to get for something like U-Haul or PODS, like moving containers. A moving container can literally fall off a truck that it’s strapped on, you guys.
If you’re moving in the winter like I did, I got very lucky because it was like 50 degrees out the week in Chicago in December that I moved, which is unheard of. The next week, it more than made up for it because it snowed. You want to look at these insurance companies. What I did for my move was a hybrid. I had movers, I had a 26-foot moving truck, but because I just have a ton of bigger furniture because I came from a bigger house than what I live in.
You should check the policy details of your moving insurance, as this covers everything you own. Share on XTips For A Smooth Moving Experience
I had a grill table for, I have a green egg, which very excited to use this smoke and stuff. I have which just takes up a lot those like a swinging egg chair that one went out of business. I bought two of them. I drove to all ends of the earth to get matching ones, like two different ones. They’re awesome. You’ll probably see pictures of me. In fact, on my we to me sitting in it with my favorites page so you can see what it looks like.
Last but not least, the moving insurance that you want to look into is your own. If you owned a house, your homeowner’s insurance, or if you rented an apartment or a house, some of those policies cover move. Your renter’s insurance and your homeowner’s insurance could potentially cover your stuff on your move. You might need extra coverage. I think they call it an umbrella policy or something that covers a certain time frame that you just pay for, like knowing that it’s going to be on a truck somewhere.
The big point that I’m trying to make here is that you want to cover your stuff with more than the valuation protection coverage that you’re going to get from a mover. Again, this is everything you own, and you might not think it’s worth anything. If you have to replace everything and you have zero coverage, you become a minimalist real quick. That’s not fun for anyone. It is worth it to look into that.
Now, a couple of tips before you do either of these. I would compare and contrast. A lot of people spend more time planning their vacations than they do finding a mover and planning the actual move itself. Read the fine print. You don’t want to assume that your moving company’s coverage is the same. Your sales rep who comes to the house and does the walkthrough, and looks to see how much poundage they think you have, may call it insurance, but it’s not insurance. It’s valuation coverage. That’s different. That’s why I’m doing this whole show.
As I said before, take pictures of everything. This is going to make a claim much easier. Know your policy’s claim deadline. I know this is weird, you sometimes it takes a long time to unpack the house. Like you get everything in, you get your necessities out, and then you’re like, “I’ll get to the stuff in the garage.” You don’t realize that, like all of your hoses, which don’t mean don’t cost that much, but it’s annoying to have to rebuy when you had a whole couple of boxes of them or something. Everything goes in a box.
Final Thoughts And Resources
That’s another one of the shows that we’re going to do this season, because it doesn’t matter what’s going on in a truck. It’s got to go in a box. That’s the thing is you want to know if you’re going to not unpack everything you own right away, you’ve got to know what the deadline is. Sometimes it’s as little as nine months to file a claim, or it can exceed, like you cannot exceed twelve months or something. You want to find that, and then also consider if you have a deductible.
Make sure it makes sense. If you have a $500 deductible and you’re trying to file a claim on Aunt Edna’s $60 vase that you broke or they broke, it might not be worth your insurance going up. If it’s a TV and it was worth $3,000 and you just bought it at Best Buy like two years ago, that would be worth it. You want to make sure what your deductible is because you may have to pay for it. Just like a car.
I would say ask, this is a tricky one. I would ask the movers about their track record. One of the things I will say is that they may not be honest with you. That’s for sure. A lot of people think that they can feel somebody out, and sometimes, if they hesitate, I don’t know, just feel it out a little bit. What I will say is that if you go to ProtectYourMove.gov, which is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s website, I talked about the FMCSA earlier.
They have where you can check your movers. This is where I would recommend you actually like find your movers on Google. Do not go through a broker. I know they’re going to kill me for this, but it shoots your information out into the ether, and you get a million phone calls, and you’re on a list forever. Half of them are scams. That’s what the FMCSA talks about.
You want to go to the FMCSA website, ProtectYourMove.gov, and you want to go into searching for a mover and you want to see if they have any filed claims against them, which is how you can find out if they’re a good mover or a bad mover. If they have had nothing against them in a year, that means that they have not been investigated by the FMCSA, which is a really good thing for you. It’s just one more thing to protect you.
True peace of mind is going to be getting third-party moving insurance. I would say not relying on the released value protection. Again, that’s the $0.60 per pound one or the full value protection, which costs you a little bit, but it’s basically going to reimburse you for a meal on your move. Let me see if I didn’t miss anything on my little list here. I don’t know.
I guess before your next move, you guys, I would just check those third-party providers like Baker International or MovingInsurance.com. Even if you see your homeowners or renters’ insurance, insurance can step up to the plate. Try that. For the love of all things bubble wrap, do not put valuables on a truck. As I said, you want to put it in your car. You want to take pictures of everything that’s going on in that truck.
That picture could very literally be worth a thousand dollars and give you the proof that you need to file a claim. That’s it for our episode of moving tips and tricks, 22ish minutes, which I’m pretty happy about. If you found this episode helpful, obviously subscribe to the website. I don’t want to give you a ton of call to actions because I hate when people are like, “Do this and do this.” You guys, my goal is to get to 10,000 downloads a month because I know that 25 million people move a year and this information is so incredibly valuable that the more you can share it with somebody, the more helpful it is for me because I can get sponsors and things like that to help you with free content and step up the vocals and get a better studio and all that stuff.
I do have a call to action. Sorry about that. I actually just redesigned everything. My show, obviously, the name of the podcast changed from Mariette’s on The Move to Moving Tips and Tricks. If you’re moving, I’m on it.. That’s where Mariette’s on The Move came from. DecidingToMove.com is my website. Just changed the URL. If you actually want to get coached, like if you have a unique situation or you’re just not sure where to go or how to figure that stuff out. There is a form right when you hit my homepage that says free podcast coaching episode or something like that, submit for a podcast coaching episode. Probably should have looked at that before I said this.
It basically gives you a form to fill out, and I will see that, and we can jump on air, and we can talk through a session. You’ll get to hear how I would coach you if this were a real-life coaching session, and how to help you figure out all the things. Until next time, happy moving and may your boxes always arrive in one piece. Have a great night.