What Your Own Insurance Does During a Move

There are two insurance questions in any move. The mover's, which people ask about, and yours, which they generally do not.

Yours is worth five minutes with your insurer before the day, because the answers vary considerably and some of them change what you should do.

Just-In-Time Moving is licensed in Utah and carries general liability insurance, and works throughout West Valley City and Salt Lake County.

Four things to ask your insurer

Are my belongings covered while in transit? Some homeowner and renter policies extend to goods being moved, some partially, some not at all. This is the core question and it takes one call.

Am I covered at both addresses during the overlap? If you have possession of two properties for a period, ask when cover starts at the new one and when it ends at the old. There is occasionally a gap, and a gap is exactly where an empty house sits unattended.

Are my high-value items scheduled? Jewellery, art, instruments and collections frequently need listing individually above a threshold. A move is a sensible moment to check, because it is when those items are most exposed and when their value is most likely to be out of date.

Does anything change if items go into storage? Cover in a storage unit is often treated differently from cover at home, sometimes with limits, and it is worth knowing before rather than after.

What to do regardless

Photograph anything valuable before it moves, with condition and serial numbers. It takes minutes and it is the difference between a claim and a discussion about what something looked like.

Keep cash, documents, jewellery, medication and anything irreplaceable with you. Those are excluded from a mover's cover essentially universally, and your own policy may treat them differently in transit too.

Tell us about anything of unusual value so it is handled accordingly rather than as ordinary furniture.

Raise anything on the day, while the crew is present.

One more worth doing at the same time as the insurance call: update the policy for the new address before you move rather than after. It is administrative and it gets deferred into the fortnight when nobody has time, and an unamended policy is exactly the kind of thing that turns out to matter at the worst moment. The same call can usually handle both questions, which makes it five minutes rather than two separate errands.

Call (435) 862-3080 or email office@movingjustintime.com.