First real damage claim: a dresser, a tight stairwell, and my valuation coverage

Brianna Sato· Local moving company, two trucks, open five months· Open, Logistics & Moving·Jul 28

Three weeks ago my crew put a gouge in a client's dresser and took a chunk out of her stairwell wall getting it down a turn that was tighter than the estimate said.

Here is the part that matters: she had signed for the default valuation coverage, which in my state is a per-pound number and works out to almost nothing on a wooden dresser. I could have pointed at the paperwork. Instead I paid a furniture repair guy $640 to come to her house, and he got it close enough that she posted a photo saying nice things about us.

I am still not sure I did the right thing financially, and I am fairly sure I did the right thing otherwise. What I am certain about is that she signed that valuation form without reading it, in a doorway, on a clipboard, at 7:50am, because that is when I hand it to people. That is my fault, not hers.

Changes since: valuation options explained on the phone at booking and again in an email she can read at her own pace, photos of anything wooden or awkward before it leaves the room, and the crew fills out a damage note the same day instead of telling me in the truck on Friday.

Do you claim damage like this, or absorb it?
What is your threshold?

I do not have a number yet and I think I need one.

3 replies

Derek Johnson· Idea stage·Jul 28

Not a mover, but the photo protocol is the transferable part and I am writing it down. On your threshold question, the thing that jumps out is that $640 bought you a photo and a recommendation, while a claim would have bought you a slightly better month and a customer telling that story differently.

That is not always worth it, and at $6,400 you would be having a different conversation. But it sounds like your threshold is somewhere above the price of a repair guy and below the price of your deductible.

Brianna Sato· Open·Jul 29

That is a cleaner way to put it than anything I had managed. My deductible is $1,000, so anything under that is coming out of my pocket regardless, and the only question is whether the customer sees me fight about it.

Where I get stuck is the genuinely big one. If a crew drops something worth $8,000 and the signed coverage says per-pound, do I hold the line on a form the customer did not read? The honest answer is I would try to split it and hate every minute, which is not a policy. I would rather decide this on a calm Tuesday than in the moment.

Cheryl Dunn· Open·Jul 29

Put the number in writing now, while nobody is angry. Plenty of my clients run this by feel and it costs them twice: once on the payout, and once on the resentment when they realise they have been absorbing a thousand dollars a quarter without noticing.

Practical version: a line in your books for damage and goodwill, funded monthly like any other cost. When it is a budget rather than a surprise, paying the $640 stops feeling like losing and starts looking like what it is, which is marketing with a sad origin story. And you will finally know your annual number instead of guessing at it.

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