Document insurance isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when you think about the essentials of using a courier service – after all, documents aren’t classed as fragile, they aren’t usually expensive (although are valuable in other ways) and they’re not typically heavy or awkward to courier, which in theory means they’re low risk on the insurance front.
Wrong!
Documents may seem like easy items to transport but they do need insurance, especially if they are important or need urgent delivery and action. Depending on the contents, not only may they be essential to transactions or services, but also they may be hard or impossible to replace, so need to at least hold a monetary value in the eyes of an insurance company to counteract any financial loss should they be damaged or lost.
What are the odds of documents being damaged or lost in transit?
This is the question you need to ask yourself when arranging for documents to be couriered. That, and ‘how much are the documents worth, to me and to the recipient?’. The answer is that whilst no courier service is ever going to intentionally damage or lose your documents, unfortunately it does happen, and insurance is the only way to cover against such losses.
How do I give documents an insurance value?
It’s hard to know how much to insure different documents for as much will depend on what they are and also what they signify to the recipient. Documents relating to house sales, for example, may mean the difference between the homeowner getting their keys and a successful completion on their purchase or not. Given that transaction may have a value of over £100k, then an insurance value on those documents should at least cover the cost of getting replicate documents sent out as priority should the originals be damaged or lost.
It’s important to consider each set of documents being sent individually and what they signify to decide on a value and level of cover.
GOfers Insurance Policy
All same day document deliveries booked through our logistics service include up to £50,000 of goods in transit insurance; we can increase your insurance cover for more valuable items. For further details contact us on 01604 231113
