So I am getting quotes from removalists to move my stuff interstate. To insure my stuff for damage, fire, and theft will be in the order of a grand.

My question, why the hell do I have to pay for insurance against them wrecking my stuff? Surely its their fault if my stuff gets broken/stolen and the cost of replacement should be covered by their own insurance.

I moved from Sydney - Brisbane in March, about $15,000 worth of stuff (60" plasma being 1/3rd of that and a kingsize bed was $4,000 worth)

anyway, being the smart young chap I thought I was I got insurance for $5000 and figured worst case they'll only break the plasma or just some furniture, so they'd just replace that

the truck hit a tree, tore the roof open and everything got wet (except the plasma, thank f***!)
i put in my claim for $5000 worth of damage and they said that because I had $15,000 worth of stuff on the truck and only $5000 insurance I am only entitled to 1/3rd ($5000 from $15000) worth of my insurance value

so for my $5000 worth of damaged s***, I'm getting less than $2000 - c***S

do not ever use www.backloads.com
I would have previously recommended them up until this too

sounds horrible, teq :(. guess you gotta read what you sign veeery carefully. not that i do that myself =/

I never signed anything!

100% booked online and paid for via credit card, f***ing con artists
the T&C's are now gone from their website by the looks of it, too

motherf***ers. spose if you have a lot of free time you could lodge something with fair trading/accc and maaaaaaybe you might see something out of it.

but then again probably not.

wtfbbq teq
that's bulls***!
so if im getting this right if you had say $1000,000 worth of stuff, and $5000 insurence, you'd only get $25?
or am I completely misunderstanding.

no, you're 100% spot on
the same applies to your home & contents insurance from the reading I've done

if your contents are insured for 25k and you have $100k worth of s***, it all gets burnt in a fire and everything has to get replaced - you're getting like $6250 back tops

so basically there is no point in insuring anything unless you insure it for 100% ?

this is madness!

I've never had to insure s*** in my life, so I dont really have a clue about it. that seems like the biggest rort ever though :/

last edited by reload! at 21:48:41 20/May/09

presumably your premiums rise in proportion (relatively) with whatever you're insuring. so it really depends on your risk/return appetite.

but that does sound a little f***ed.

That's insurance, make sure you go with someone who insures all your s*** 100%...

the % insurance thing is pretty standard practice.

if your contents are insured for 25k and you have $100k worth of s***, it all gets burnt in a fire and everything has to get replaced - you're getting like $6250 back tops

Err no that doesnt make sense.

From the way you first described it, if you insure your $100000 worth of s*** for $25000 and everything is destroyed you would get $25000, but if you had say only $25000 worth of damage you would get back $6250.

yeah that makes more sense

do not ever use www.backloads.com

I second that. Used them twice - they use completely unreliable contractors. They threw my gear around and bitched at how breakable my boxes were. Then I watched them throw someone else's mountain bike on the full across the entire length of the truck to make some room.

No way I'm using them again.

Err no that doesnt make sense.

lemme try this again;

$100k worth of assets
ring insurance company, get insurance for only $25k worth of your items because you figure at any time you will only ever lose $25k worth of your s***

then you lose 25k worth of your s***, you only had 25% insurance because all of your stuff is worth 100k and you were only insured for 25k (25%)
so you only get 25% of the value of your claim (which was $25k)

so you get 25% of your claim, which is $6250

you wont get $25k even though you had insurance for 25k, simply because you were under-insured by 75%

but that's common sense? if you had insured 100% of your s***, the premium you would have had to pay would have been much higher (presumably around 4x higher depending on the formula they use to calculate premiums) to compensate the extra risk the moving company was taking on by insuring a higher value of goods, surely?

so what % do all the homeowners here insure their home and contents for?
is there a norm across the population?

I used Backloads from Melbourne to Brisbane. What a disaster. The bloke who packed the truck was a massive wanker. I basically brought all the boxes down to him while he packed the truck (killed my back). When the truck arrived in Brisbane everything was everywhere. The blokes on the Brisbane line were really nice and unpacked everything but half my furniture was destroyed. Lucky I had it insured. The thing is that we only had just bought the furniture as well. Ended up getting some back from insurance after a s*** fight (f%*%ers)

SUCK IT BACKLOAD

I used Wridgeways to move the house & car from Brisbane to Melbourne and it cost about $6000 all up including insurance. The boys came in, packed it all up, shipped it away and then arrived on a Saturday morning to unpack it all in Melbourne.

I'm still dealing with the insurance c***s, they apparently lost all my forms so I have to post it to them again this week

but that's common sense? if you had insured 100% of your s***, the premium you would have had to pay would have been much higher (presumably around 4x higher depending on the formula they use to calculate premiums) to compensate the extra risk the moving company was taking on by insuring a higher value of goods, surely?

no no, you're missing the point
I only had $5k worth of insurance, so if $6k worth of my s*** was damaged, I figured I'd get $5k worth of it back? I paid for $5k worth of insurance so thats what i should get

but no, thats not how it work.

because i had $10000 worth of stuff in the truck, even if only $1000 worth of stuff was damaged, if i had $5k worth of insurance I would only get $500 back - despite having insurance for $5000, I was only 50% insured for the total cost.

only 10% of my goods were damaged in this example, i had 50% insurance, i should be able to claim a full 10%?

at least thats how i figured it, and got boned.

Maybe you should learn to ask questions and read the fine print on your insurance contracts.

Sounds like a misrepresentation of the details, they provided it to you as "$5000 insurance" when it should have been "50% insurance".. right?

suck s*** teq! haha!