Recently, we were asked whether we have ever had any lucky escapes with insurance where someone didn’t get insurance and lost their value, or did get insurance and really needed it?
The answer was yes – this is why we have to have it in writing. We get customers to fill out a declaration for us that says yes, we want insurance, for this much and so forth.
We had a situation where where a vehicle was damaged in transit, and a customer was trying to suggest that he told us he wanted insurance all the way through, and we’d simply never discussed it. A shipment doesn’t move without that being in place in writing in advance.
We had a beautiful old military Harley from the ‘40s get moved. Completely restored, it was worth about 50 grand or something. You can get bikes that are worth a hell of a lot more than that but this one was quite the pretty little thing.
It traveled as far as Valencia from Melbourne to London. At Valencia, one of the ballast tanks on the vessel was punctured, and a level of containers were drowned in seawater. This guy had insurance, and it got paid out. It’s just so disheartening when things like this happen but it proves why insurance is so worthwhile.