My husband and I sent a picture to his father for his father's birthday. It was a glass waterfall. We wrote "fragile" on every side of the box. The agent then asked us what the value of the picture was. We told her what was in the package and asked for $200 in insurance.
The picture arrived in Ohio, but was never delivered. After several phone calls, we finally found out that the picture had been severly damaged to the point where they wouldn't return it to us.
It took us three weeks and 4 agents just to get a claim form. We sent it in with all the requested paperwork. Much to our surprise we only received $100. The explanation was that they would only insure pictures up to $100. They referred us to volume 4 of some operating manual.
The shipping paperwork had this info on the back, in small lengthy print in light grey on green. It was impossible to read. When asked why the agent didn't advise us of this, since she knew what was in the package, the response was we should have read their disclaimer. This is very difficult to do when there's a line of people behind you.
Why don't they put this into on a sign in their shipping offices? Easy. They're making a fortune off of people like us. They could probably cut their claims agent staff in half because I'm sure we are amoung many people to have had this experience.