How should we value ous shipment?

We are booking a 20 foot container with PSS. Planning on taking all our household effects. We are now looking at insuring and are being asked to assign values to our belongings, but are unsure on how to go about this...

We were planning on insuring the most valuable items individually eg, furniture, electricals, and then assigning a lump sum to various grouped items eg. clothing, books, ornaments, crockery, bedding etc. What we don't understand is if an item within the grouped items is damaged, do they only pay out the value we assigned divided by the number of items we listed in that group (even if that single item was the most valuable item in the group)? And, if we haven't valued everything in our shipment, and they therefore deem our shipment to be undervalued, are we at risk when making a claim.

Any advice on how others insured their items for shipping would be much appreciated...

You insure as a lump sum by nominating a sum insured limit. Sit down and spend an hour pricing the cost to replace 2x rooms usually lounge and 1 bedroom. Multiply this by the number of remains rooms (not including bathrooms or hallways) and this will provide a very rough estimate. Most people under insure encouraged by many insurance companies not being interested in anything north of £60k. Australia is noted as the worlds worst country for under insurance meaning claims are aggressively fought.

We have high level music gear and circa £50k record collection which has always posed an issue for insurers especially when insisting they not be insured as a 'collection' (can have SI limit applied).

S

I would look into independent shipping insurance over the shipping companies. And ask them how they work it.

Letton Percival or Insure Your Move are ones to check out. Seems to be easier to claim and get it sorted quicker using an independent company.