Our Moving Insurance Experience
We only wanted to help the kids out, you know, give them our Cabriolet—that’s a VW convert—so they could truly enjoy their new home: Maui.
Moving insurance? Well, we thought our policies would cover the move. “Pay for the shipping,” is all we asked of them. “We’ll look into all the details… yes, I’m sure our auto insurance will cover it.”
The list of ‘to-dos’ was not a long one, but a road untraveled by us; we lived in a land-locked region of Washington state within a few hours of Seattle, but had no idea how 
complicated it could be to ship a car to Hawaii—not to mention the stuff about quarantine and no fruit in the front seat.
YOUR AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE
We had the notion that our auto insurance would cover pretty much the whole darn thing, from land to sea to the Maui terminal. Not so. Moving insurance, it was not.
Most peoples’ car insurance simply doesn’t pack it: the companies won’t pay out a dime if the car is damaged while being shipped by a carrier—like two cars bumping together on the ship, (We thought our collision coverage would handle this instance without having to buy more insurance.)
Theft? Sure, it can happen, say at the terminal; or maybe a transport hi-jacking? Anyway, this area of coverage is a definite ‘no’ for your standard auto insurance policy, and calls for additional insurance.
THE CARRIER’S SHIPPING INSURANCE
Read carefully. Sometimes a flat claim amount is all you’ll get, regardless the age of the car.
DELIVER THE CAR TO THEIR DOOR?
We only had to make a single call to a moving company before we realized this was not going to be an option. Cost prohibitive.
TERMINAL TO TERMINAL…
This is the cheapest way to go. We went with it, drove the car to the Port of Seattle’s transport pier; filled out a ream of documents for shipping and picking up at the Maui terminal.
WRAPPING THE CAR IN THE RIGHT POLICY
Don’t skimp on coverage. Check with MoveInsure for the right kind of moving insurance: full coverage is available whether by land, sea or air.
