!!!!!New Fedex Policy On Musical Instruments!!!!

mtulbert · From: Plano, Texas 75023

Hi everyone,

This is something I heard about last night and want to make sure everyone is aware of this change by FedEx.

A good friend of mine shipped a guitar yesterday and was told by the FedEx agent that the new policy of insuring musical instruments in now a $1000 max. He wound up getting a supplemental policy to cover the cost difference of the value of the guitar.

His total outlay for the shipping and insurance was pretty close to the same since the cap is $1000 with FedEx. It is just a minor hassle for us shippers. I can try and find the name of the company he used for the additional insurance.

Regards,
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Mike Scaggs · From: Nashville, TN

Very good to know. Is UPS doing the same I wonder?
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Greg Cutshaw · From: Corry, PA, USA

https://www.shipware.com/fedex-shipping-insurance-a-comprehensive-guide/

"FedEx might not exclude insurance on the above items outright, but may limit the amount you can declare. For example, FedEx permits a maximum declared value up to $1,000 for the following items:

Some musical instruments"

Also:

2017 FedEx Service Guide
http://images.fedex.com/us/services/...Guide_2017.pdf

See page 138, "Limits of Liability" Section F.12.

F. Shipments (packages or freight) containing all or part of the following items are limited to a maximum declared value of US$1,000:

... 12. Guitars and other musical instruments that are more than 20 years old, and customized or personalized musical instruments.

This might not apply if you ship FEDEX through Kinkos or some other 3rd party service.

Heritage, Clarion, and Andersen often are mentioned. They are insurance brokers who have worked with insurance companies to get them to write policies that are suited to musical instrument owners, makers, and dealers. These are conventional casualty policies but they have been written to allow for the real value of custom and vintage instruments to be covered.

What a mess!

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I would never ship a Pedal Steel or some high $$ guitar. It would have to be picked up. Actually, I wouldn't sell a Pedal Steel or high $$ guitar without the buyer inspecting and playing it first. Same way if I were buying a Pedal Steel (I'm not and don't plan on it) I would want to check it out and play it first.

Andrew Wright · From: Indiana, USA

Nothing meaningful has changed. To have true insurance on a shipped musical instrument with any carrier, you need to go through a 3rd party. I used to use Heritage, now use Clarion. USPS/FedEx/UPS "insurance" or "declared value" or whatever has always been garbage.

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

I took FedEx to court.
This was a few years ago but I paid extra for insurance and the pristine p/p Emmons I sent was damaged.
FedEx would not even recognize any damage let alone cover it.
I got the guitar back and filed a claim in small claims court. The FedEx people showed up and said it wasn't insurance, that was declared value.
The judge said: "I'll determine that".
And she said that I had paid extra and it was for insurance coverage. I wound up getting a check from FedEx for $4,800 and the guitar wound up in a FedEx warehouse in Utah.

Clark Connell · From: Emmetsberg,Iowa USA

It shows clearly that they don't trust their own crews to use care in the handling of things. The shippers don't like heavy items like pedal steel guitars because they have to use a two-wheeler because they're heavy...they can't just toss them around. A friend who is a UPS employee told me that point blank. Well, isn't that just 2 bad. Ya don't mind charging us though.
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Brooks Montgomery · From: Idaho, USA

Gary Webb · From: New York, USA

I don't see why they are allowed to sell insurance at all. If you take the job of shipping something, you should automatically be responsible for it's safety.

Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

I've been a Fedex online member for 10 years now and just shipped yesterday for 2500.00 insurance carried by Fedex.
I fill out shipping invoice online and NO WHERE does it ask you what you are shipping.
After I make my shipping invoice; I take my 40"x15"x8" 75 pound boxed up 2500.00 insured "Item" to my local shipping store and they scan it in and truck picks it up at 2pm.
No prob yesterday; no prob 10 years ago.....YES PROB. with all the other shipping companies in so many ways....but FEDEX is the BOMB!!!!! Period.
Now I do all that I just stated myself....if you get ANY one to do any of that; that is your Loss.
Ricky
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Mark Helm · From: Tennessee, USA

I, like many of us, have shipped expensive guitars safely, time and time again. I ALWAYS use UPS, and I ALWAYS insure each instrument fully. And I have never had a problem. However, before I ever shipped so much as a plastic ukulele, I took great pains to learn what methods and materials were needed to ship my guitars safely. If it wasnâ€™t possible to do this, factories would be overflowing with instruments waiting to be inspected and picked up. Oh, and this section of the forum would have dried up ages ago.

Do instruments ever get damaged by shippers? Well, as Ervâ€™s tale illustrates, sure! Itâ€™s exceedingly rare, but it happens (you know, like Bigfoot & Bigsby 6-string sightings). And when it does, you do exactly as Erv did (beginning with first insuring the instarument for the proper amount). Then, as Erv did, you fricking stick up for yourself! And we now know how that turned out (just brilliant, Erv!!!).

So, if you donâ€™t want to ship, DONâ€™T FREAKING SHIP! No need to take up space here droning on about why youâ€™d never shipâ€” unless you really have something helpful to offer regarding the topic at hand. Im grateful for the helpful info I get here: Iâ€™m grateful to Mark T for the info about FedEx. And Iâ€™m grateful to Erv for sharing his story.

Shipping is a necessary evil. But itâ€™s ONLY a disaster waiting to happen if you go into it naively, or just plain stupidly, like the guy who shipped a high-end electric guitar in a custom leather case to me last year by taping two large pieces of cardboard to either side of the case, slapping a shipping label on, and sending it on its way. What a surprise when the guitar and case arrived damaged! Needless to say, I no longer buy from this, erm, gentleman (tho, in his defense, after much haranguing, he finally made good; I must have had a bit of Erv in me!).

To sum up, shipping safely is absolutely possible. Ricky D also assures us of thisâ€”and with FedEx (guess what? I believe him!). Wanna learn how to do this? Just ask folks like Ricky who do it often and successfully how itâ€™s done! Folks here are tremendously generous with their knowledge. How do you think I learned?! I learned from the great people of this forum!

Helm out. Very Happy

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Jeremy Threlfall · From: now in Western Australia

I'm in Australia

My wife works in a fine art gallery and she has access to specialist movers

The gallery kindly lets me use their account for shipping pedal steels

When I ship a guitar across the country (Perth to Brisbane, about the same distance as Los Angeles - New York) it costs me about 50 US bucks (70AUD) fully insured and treated with kid gloves

before I met my wife, I had an arrangement with my favourite guitar store and they used to let me use their account with whoever it was. Same thing, the shipper valued their business with the store and took proper care

I've been fortunate, never had to use commercial shippers as a mug off the streets
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James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Guys and gals that I know that work for these shipping companies tell me that they are pushed to perform or they loose their job......This is a recipe for an accident waiting to happen !!.......Jim

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Brooks,
Now for the rest of the story.
I guess when the warehouse gets full, FedEx has an auction.
A fellow actually called me from Utah and was interested in bidding on my guitar, so he knew what he was getting. Very Happy

Erv

K Maul · From: Hadley, NY/Hobe Sound, FL

Unclaimed Freight.....
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Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

It's not unclaimed freight, FedEx knew where it came from. Whoa!

Erv

Fred Justice · From: Mesa, Arizona

What Ricky said, for the most part.
Go FedEx
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Mike Vallandigham · From: Martinez, CA

I'm a FedEx man myself. I avoid UPS like the plague.

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

I've shipped my last guitars through the US Postal Service.
They'll take up to 75 pounds.
Erv

Tom Campbell · From: Houston, Texas, USA

There are many postings on the Forum related to preparing a steel guitar for safe shipping...from the very basic to Johnny King's method;
I think he puts his steel in a 2" thick steel "coffin" and welds it shut. Wink

If you don't want to do what is required for safe shipping...just strap it on your back and walk to the destination. Your delivery time may very +- a few weeks!

Chance Wilson · From: California, USA

When I first started selling my guitars internationally, I used UPS. When they destroyed new guitars in new cases custom made by G&G who is probably older than UPS, I learned the hard way that even when taking a total loss and refunding a customer for UPS' negligence, there's no way to fully retain one's reputation as a Luthier. I quickly switched to Fedex. I have a 20 year relationship with them deliberately using their ground service to avoid excess handling between trucks and planes and have had no problems to date. Early on, when I got into conserving what I deemed historically important instruments, I would drive crazy distances to acquire and then again to redistribute pieces in person and to ensure their well being. My volume eventually got to the point where it wasn't realistic for me to give each instrument this kind of personal attention and the end result was that I entrusted Fed Ex with shipping irreplaceable Bigsbys all over the place. (Granted the packing techniques and materials were time and money consuming on my end).
During my learning years, I did have experiences where a Fedex employee would make me unpack an instrument in their office because I had insured It for the selling price of $10-20,000.+ but I learned quickly that if you set up a fedex business account and print your labels at home, including 5 figures insurance, you could drop your items off at a Fedex office, get an acknowledgement that your heirloom was in their realm of liability and be on your way without molestation and with so far an untarnished client relationship. In less words, in my experience, how you interface with Fedexâ€™ bureaucracy will dictate how much they will honor your transaction. Fedex very well might have restructured and changed but having not received a vintage item I purchased last week from a dealer who used a carrier Iâ€™ve never heard of who claims the item was delivered and the transaction is now in a drawn out returns claim, I still prefer Fedex over the extremely limited alternatives like Uber Pathological Sociopaths (UPS) U Sure Paid for it with tax $ Service (USPS) etc. â€œOn December 5, 2011, the USPS announced it would close more than half of itâ€™s mail processing centers and eliminate 28,000 jobs...This will close down 252 of its 461 processing centersâ€.

Keith Bolog · From: Wisconsin, USA

All damaged items I have ever received, not just steels, were courtesy UPS. Even if cheaper I avoid them.

Old Rumour: UPS mechanical sorting center design has a lot of built-in danger like conveyor-to-conveyor drops, Fedex ships a lot of ground packages by air anyway, which means more manual handling, fewer transfers, less chance for loss or damage. Lots of Youtube video of processing centers refute this. You be the judge.

I heard long ago that it was a hassle getting reimbursed for expensive, antique instruments (or antique anything) from ALL the shipping services. Its been in their legalese for a while. You might get repair value only, which isnt satisfactory for the buyer of a mint item that cant be made mint again. Fedex advice to me: Pay for air or overnight, much less handling thus less damage or chance for loss. That is the REAL cost of insurance.
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Sidney Ralph Penton · From: Moberly, Missouri, USA

i shipped a fender tele about two weeks ago by ups and insured it for $1500 and they accepted it.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

One of our forum members used to drive truck for Fed Ex. He often warned about careful packing as big/heavy items most likely will be dropped and jarred around.

I recently bought a used Nashville 112 from someone on the forum. It was shipped FedEx from Tulsa Oklahoma to Florida. It was very well packed but the speaker was bad when I got it (the seller claimed it was OK, so giving him the benefit of the doubt I have to assume it was damaged in transit). I shipped the speaker to Telonics via UPS and apparently the jarring during shipping "fixed" the speaker. (The speaker was definitely bad as I disconnected the speaker and tried a TT12 and an EPS-15C (reconnecting after testing each speaker) and it was OK with the TT12 and EPS-15C).

Steve Layne · From: Texas, USA

I have a Fedex story with a mostly happy ending. I bought a Fender Custom Shop â€˜55 P-Bass from a store in Seattle and they shipped it â€œinsuredâ€ via FedEx. The box arrived looking normal except with (thru later closer inspection) a slightly crunched in corner/end. I opened the pristine case to find the headstock completely snapped off at the nut/1st fret area despite some serious packing material around the case and around areas of the guitar. Breaking a Fender headstock takes a lot of force. Maybe like the surprise of having a Colt .45 just melt in your hand. Best I can guess, the box probably fell hard right on the end and the guitar shifted and rammed the top of the headstock into the case wall. Enough shock to snap it, and I have no idea how much tension was on it, though the store said it always loosens strings a little for shipment.
Anyways, I never personally dealt with Fedex on it (though I wanted to - the store said theyâ€™d do all the negotiating with Fedex - hmmm). The store claimed Fedex was giving them the runaround as to culpability and then what the damage was worth. I was heartbroken about the bass and at that point just wanted them to give full value and buy the wreck from me. However, the store got bogged down for several weeks over it and ended up - I think on their own dime- compensating me for the headstock repair from a local luthier AND the devaluation of the instrument. I came out good after several fretful (no pun intended) weeks as the headstock repair was virtually transparent and I ended up getting a $3500 bass for $1109. I cannot speak for Fedexâ€™s willingness to remedy as the store was vague about just how my settle resolution came about. I can speak for one instance of terrible package handling. Sorry for the novel.

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