subject: Understanding Your Shipping Paperwork: Declared Value [print this page] Most of the items that you have to fill out in the paperwork that your courier service in Chicago provides to you are going to be relatively straight forward. They are going to consist of things like the address of your organization, and that of the people that you are shipping to. Other items might be more confusing, especially if you've never needed to fill out paperwork before. One of the items that people more commonly experience difficulties with is the one that is called "declared value".
The declared value is how much you are saying that your package is worth. However, it's important that you try and fill this out as accurately as you can. This is a number that isn't just used for the courier company's own knowledge, but is actually used by their insurance provider as well. That means that if something should happen to your package, the insurance company is going to pull the information about your goods from this paperwork. That means that you need to represent the value of your package as accurately as you can when filling in the declared value.
When you fill out the declared value, you are committing yourself to how much you want to be compensated for if damage should occur to your shipment. It is also a number that will be used if there are tax implications to the value of your shipment, such as when shipping internationally. This is not an area to be inaccurate in, or in which to fudge numbers in any way.
There is a problem that can occur at times that you need to know about if you're in a business that requires you to ship things which are much more valuable than the average goods sent with a courier company. This is something called the maximum declared value. This is a limit that may be imposed to your declared value, meaning that is the most you would be able to claim on an insurance claim. If your goods are worth more than that amount, you might need to buy some extra insurance on your own.
You might have a couple of ways that you could go about that. Many times, people simply contact their own insurance provider and take out a transportation policy on their goods. There are some courier companies though that will have insurance options that you can add onto the cost of your shipment to ensure adequate coverage.
by: Norman Packwell
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