Moving overseas is a big deal. Whatever your reason, and wherever you are going, you are leaving behind people you may have known all your life – be they friends or relatives – and going to a new land with a different culture, sometimes very different, and where in a lot of cases English is not the first language, or may not be spoken at all. Indeed, you may have had to start learning a new language in the weeks before the move.  

Now it may be that you plan to buy some new furniture when you arrive in your new homeland, but if you are like most people there will be things that you want to take with you. And if you want to take things with you it will be because they have a value to you. Indeed, they could be very valuable indeed, such as antique furniture or glass, or large original paintings. And if you value them you will want to ensure that you are protected against loss. Of course, nobody can protect you against total loss of something that is irreplaceable, for the simple reason that you cannot replace it, but at least you can gain financial compensation as long as it is covered by insurance.

Fortunately, the chances of your goods being lost or destroyed during shipping are not all that great, although it can and does happen. According to the World Shipping Council which carried out a survey in 2017, between 2014 and 2016 an average of 3.8 containers were lost each day, but that was out of a total of 356,000. Ships transported £8.5 billion worth of cargo every day, and 99.99% of it arrived safely.

However, there is always that element of risk, even if you think that it won’t happen to you, so the answer is to take out overseas removal insurance. This will give you the peace of mind that, if the worst happens, you will at least receive compensation.

The first thing to do is to consider what you can leave behind. You don’t want to take everything including the kitchen sink because the less you take the less the shipping is going to cost you. Furthermore, the less you take, the less the insurance is going to cost you as well. So it’s time to sit down and think about what you really NEED to take and what you can leave behind, either replacing it when you arrive at your destination or not. If you are not going to replace it, then there is no point in taking it anyway.

Then the next thing to do is to value the items you are going to take, and value them accurately. Don’t over-value them just because you love them. You may have a favourite armchair, but just check out what it would cost you to replace it. Equally, you don’t want to undervalue anything because if it is a total loss you are only going to get the amount it was insured for. You need to write a description of the items and also take photographs. Apart from any other consideration, this will make replacing them with as near identical as possible much easier if they are lost.

When you are ready to go, you will need to have all your items professionally packed. Some insurance policies will not pay out if you pack the items yourself and they get damaged.

When you are ready to get insurance quotes, you will need to decide what sort of insurance cover you want. There are different types. Probably the best is warehouse to warehouse cover because it covers you as it says on the tin. You can also get all risk insurance which covers most events, but not something like war or an asteroid strike. Named perils only covers specific named items, and it is cheaper. Even cheaper is total loss as it only covers you for that. You can also get general average coverage which is included in some policies. This covers the situation when someone else’s cargo is lost or damaged: all those shipping goods have to jointly pay for any damage to the vessel or its’ cargo. So you could have to pay towards someone else’s loss even though your own items arrived safely.