What sort of shipping insurance issues have you experienced?

I can't imagine that the Craken (sp?) will strike and that my cargo container will be lost as sea. 

After seeing how well things were packed up, I can't really imagine anything too major in terms of damage.  I can, however, imagine loads of things going wrong between the container and my front door     (which is BTW, down a flight of stairs that has an 180 degree turn at the bottom).     ((I really really expect/hope that the movers are well experienced in dealing with tight corners))

Still, I wonder what YOU might have experienced in terms of having to claim insurance for your overseas shipment. 

Is it worth it to get SUPER-anal or is it OK to only put value on your most important pieces? 

thanks HB

We insured everything, plus extra on our high value - at first we were glad because we moved within a week of that container ship sinking in the Channel.  But, here's my word of caution: although our moving company was super careful about numbering each box/item as they loaded them and writing them all on a list, in the chaos of unloading there was no one checking off if each number was there.  So, yes, we saw them seal and unseal our shipping container, saw them unload everything, nothing was damaged, but by the time we finished unpacking everything (weeks later) we were missing two valuable framed pictures (which I think were probably boxed together).  We couldn't claim for them because we'd signed that everything had arrived.  (In addition, we'd put a lot of things straight into storage, i.e. had the moving guys hand them off the van to the storage guys who loaded them away, so we couldn't be 100% sure they were missing until we unloaded that stuff months later when it was REALLY too late.)  Who knows where the pictures went - probably were never loaded in the first place - but the whole thing left me very frustrated.  Even so, I do think insurance is important for the ship sinking and furniture getting dropped/knocked scenarios.

We too insured everything.  It is a little known fact that occasionally containers fall off of the ship into the ocean during very rough weather.  Things are pretty expensive over here so we insured for replacement value.

Not sure why you couldn't claim even after signing; I did.  For stupid little things!  We were missing cables for the printer, TV and stereo.  Bought some new ones, the shipping company sent the cash.  No fuss at all.

(Still wondering if I'll come across those cables somewhere.. nothing else seems to be missing, all the boxes are accounted for.. they may just be hiding still.)

Our movers (Rainier International) is coming this Friday 9/12 and we will be insuring everything and plus some.  They told us to make sure to go over what we paid as you would be replacing the items in the UK and it is more expensive to replace in the UK than in the US.

Almost all of our things are already boxed because we moved in with my Mom in January but this Thursday (my birthday...) I have the day off so we are going to unpack everything, take a picture of what is in the box and repack it.  That way we have a good idea of everything in each box and will help us come to an amount we want to insure for.  As we have pretty much forgot everything we packed as it has been 9 months ago! 

Rainier said it was fine that everything is packed we just can't shut the top of the boxes as they will need to look inside each of them before they load it onto the liftvan.

Anyway (long story short) I would make sure to insure above and beyond what is being sent so that you can re-buy in the UK if needed.   

Taking a photo of what's in each box is a good idea.  I actually do this with my suitcase contents whenever I fly, in case they lose my bag and my jetlagged brain is filling out that form, going, "Urmmmm... I know there are valuable things in there, if I could only remember."

Don't know why I never thought to apply it to boxes until now.  Thanks!