Selling privately: shouldn't insurance be for double the value?

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If a knife is sold and then shipped to the buyer insured, does it make sense to insure for twice the amount of the knife?

In case it's lost, if you insure for only the knife's value, who gets the check and who loses out? Am I thinking this through correctly?
 
As a seller I consider it my responsibility to get the knife to a buyer in the condition that I sent it. If that does not happen, it is up to me to get a refund to the buyer quickly. Then it is up to me to deal with the carrier to get the insured value of the package. I am out of the time value of the money between the time I refund the buyer and when the carrier pays off.
 
Boint:
If you are the seller, you already have the money for the knife. If it is lost in shipping, you collect the insurance and give the buyer back his money. No money is lost, only the knife. You have the buyer's money and he has the shipper's money.

Marcel
 
One problem that strikes me is that say you ship USPS. If an item is lost, you cannot file a claim for at least 90 days.

Then, they have to process it, and then, if (and that's a pretty big if) they agree that they have lost the item, you will get a check about a month later, maybe.

So at a minimum, one of you is out a chunk of change for at least 5 months. Is this the sellers responsibility or the buyers, assuming the seller shipped the item correctly and the buyer provided a correct address that can be delivered to?

I only have had one package ever get lost, and I was the seller. The buyer gave me the incorrect address, so I kept the money until the insuance check came through from USPS.
 
Originally posted by Architect
One problem that strikes me is that say you ship USPS. If an item is lost, you cannot file a claim for at least 90 days.

Then, they have to process it, and then, if (and that's a pretty big if) they agree that they have lost the item, you will get a check about a month later, maybe.

So at a minimum, one of you is out a chunk of change for at least 5 months. Is this the sellers responsibility or the buyers, assuming the seller shipped the item correctly and the buyer provided a correct address that can be delivered to?
Click to expand...

Definitely the seller. The customer is at no risk, imo.


Phillip:)
 
Sure. . .you can insure the parcel for 2 or 3 times what it's worth. But, when it's time to file a claim (UPS, FedX, USPS, etc.) you'll only receive payment for what you paid for the knife. Some type of purchase receipt(s) is/are required. . .when filing a claim.

My position, when selling a knife, has been to immediately refund the seller the total amount that he or she sent for the purchased item (if the parcel is lost or the item is damaged while enroute to the new owner). I then begin the claim process ~ I receive the claim check.

Luckily. . .I've never had a parcel lost nor damaged (knock on wood) but deal with these type of claims/issues daily.

Who loses ? Depends on how you look at it. Just one of the hazards of making moves and grooves in the knife (or shipping/receiving) world.
 
If you ship UPS, and they lose/steal it, you have to prove value with a customer invoice. So buying double insurance probably won't do you much good. If they don't believe value, or you can't/won't prove it, they will pay what they think it should be. I have heard of a few people getting ripped this way, by UPS.:mad:
 
Sometimes a package takes a few weeks to get to its final destination. I agree that a refund should be given, but I think that a period of about three weeks should be allowed for the package to arrive before the refund is given.
 
Out of about 250 instances of successfully using USPS Priority Mail, last January I finally had one disappear on the way to the buyer. It was an eBay purchase and was worth only $125.00 (fortunately).

My bad--I didn't insure OR track it. :( After three weeks, I sent him the money back. As of last week it still never made it there. Chalk one up....

Coop
 
Originally posted by Mike Hull
If you ship UPS, and they lose/steal it, you have to prove value with a customer invoice. So buying double insurance probably won't do you much good.
Click to expand...

Now, there's a conundrum!

If they don't pay you double after having bought double insurance, then they should refund back that portion of the insurance premium that would have entitled you to that double portion.



I think ....:confused:
 
Then of course there are the $600.00 customs delivered and signed for, at a persons work place and sometime the knife you placed in the box gets reported to you as stolen. Since it was signed for as received you get nothing :mad:
 
Boink, shipping companies leave it up to you to decide how much insurance you want. They do not ask for proof of value at the time of shipping. They also do not refund any money paid towards insurance.

Originally posted by hstdist
Then of course there are the $600.00 customs delivered and signed for, at a persons work place and sometime the knife you placed in the box gets reported to you as stolen. Since it was signed for as received you get nothing :mad:
Click to expand...

This problem presents a bit of a conundrum. If the person receiving the knife asks you to ship it to his/her work place and it is signed for, should the person shipping the knife still be required to give a refund?
 
Originally posted by Keith Montgomery


This problem presents a bit of a conundrum. If the person receiving the knife asks you to ship it to his/her work place and it is signed for, should the person shipping the knife still be required to give a refund?
Click to expand...

I feel if you ship a knife to an address provided by the buyer, and it is signed for, then the deal is complete. You can't be held responsible for who signs or what they do with it. By signature confirmation, you have proven that you shipped to the desired destination and it arrived there. I feel its now up to the buyer to do some leg work and find out what happened to the package.
 
In this particular instance I was requested to send first and the trade item would follow. So I was the only one out a $600.00 knife.
 
My experience with UPS...they will give up their first born before they will settle an insurance claim. Took me 138 phone calls over a period of 7 weeks plus threats of legal action before I got a check.

I have found UPS employees, for the most part, to be rude and borderline morons. I no longer ship UPS. And I will not enter into a transaction where the shipper insists on using them.

The USPS may be slow but they pay what you insured the item for without a major hassle. That has also been my experience...YMMV.
 
O.K. , I lost one as some of you know . See stolen knife thread . I paid for the knife and the shipping in the price of the knife . Should the insurance be split between both the maker and the client at that point ir should the check go to the buyer as they paid for the insurance and also have already paid for the knife .

I don't have a problem with the maker making another knife since they have been paid for it anyway and I feel that splitting the insurance is fine but what do you folks feel. That way the seller gets basicly paid twice for the knife and the buyer gets money also for the wait .

I would always insure for twice the value , providing a receipt is an easy thing to do .

Jerry
 
Jerry, if you can show a receipt that has been supplied by the maker for double the amount paid, then the shipping company will pay that amount if you bought enough insurance. The receipt must be from the maker and that presents a problem. If the maker gives you a receipt for double what you paid he is committing fraud and can possibly get into a lot of trouble for doing so. Most makers will not do this, because they don't want the possible severe repercussions.

The shipping company will pay the claim to the person that bought the insurance; the shipper. It is up to the buyer to decide if he/she wants to wait for another knife. If not, the maker should refund the buyer, because he/she is being paid for the original knife by the insurance. If the buyer wants another knife then the maker gets two sales out of the deal, which is fair, because two knives were made.

I am not quite sure I understand what you are suggesting here. Are you saying that both the maker and the buyer should be paid if the knife is lost? If that is the case the buyer will end up making money or getting a free knife out of the deal. The maker on the other hand will only get paid for the actual number of knives that are made, which is as it should be.
 
I sell and ship high-end fossils for a living, in probably 7 or 800 insured packages through the post office, i had only one go missing, of course it turned out to be about a $2,000 package where my typical package runs about $300 or so. I did finally get the money but it took a few months, and of course i refunded the buyers $ immediately once we realized it was missing, and then i filed the claim, insurance is for the SELLERS protection, getting an item to the buyer is my responsibility no matter what, if it never gets there, if the post office never gets his signature, thats MY problem to deal with. Overall, im pretty happy with their service though. I have no desire to use UPS.
 
I'm not saying fraud here but we all know ( at least the ones I have dealt with) lets say suppliers , insure for more than face value and most don't send a receipt with the custom item . As far as insurance being only for the seller , they have been paid ahead of time and if you ship before full payment then I am inclined to agree but if not then it is for both parties . If mailers or suppliers want the insurance to cover only them then it should not be included in the price of an item . I just had some knives shipped to me and I sent the insured label for the shipper to use .

I must be way off base here but this is my uptake any way .Thanks for the input .

Jerry
 
You can insure for double, but you're only paying a useless premium most of the time.If you try to collect for more than the value of the item, the Justice Dept. has a few nice words for that like "postal fraud" which is VERY, VERY, BAD! You can only insure for at most, "the replacement value of the item." You must be able to prove this, so in some instances it may be be worth it to insure for greater than the selling price of an item, PROVIDED you can prove the replacement value is higher than the price paid.

Example: Steve buys a black pearl Sawby Skimmer on eBay for $300. He requests the shipper to insure for $1000, which is the replacement value of the knife, and pays the insurance to the seller to insure the package. USPS loses the knife. SELLER collects the insurance proceeds, since he was the "insured". Seller legally should forward proceeds to buyer, since the seller was acting as the buyers agent. If he doesn't forward the proceeds, he could be sued. Seller keeps Steve's $300 since the contract was fufilled in "good faith."

At least that was how it was explained to me when a very expensive part I needed went MIA.
 
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