Rare Book Monthly
Articles - January - 2008 Issue
The Great Homosassa Hassle: or A Trip Through the Wonder World of USPS Insurance Claims Adjustment
none
The U. S. Postal Service procedure for making a claim for insured goods damaged in transit requests that you return the damaged article and the packing material to your local post office before you make a claim. Your Post Office will probably want to keep the book until the claim is paid or rejected. If the claim is paid, they probably will not return the book to you. However, if there is damage to a book that can be repaired, they may be willing to pay for those repairs. In this case, the book would be returned to you.
3. If you file an insurance claim for a book lost in the mail, make sure that the initial claim you file is as complete and as accurate as possible. Whatever you put on that first claim form will be what is entered in the Claims Department computer. If you appeal the claim, the person handling the appeal will probably look at what is in their computer for that claim number, not at any additional information you send them. Also, I would suggest that you have the claim sent in with Delivery Confirmation or Certified Mail even if you have to pay the extra cost of that service.
4. The Post Office Claims Department operates an "amorphorous" system. There is no specific individual assigned to dealing with a claim. For example, each time you call to get information, you will probably speak to a different individual and if anyone calls you back, it will not be a person you have talked to before. However, each of the individuals you talk to will look up your claim number on their computer and will read you the same information from the computer screen. However, they may not be able to alter erroneous information in the computer. If your claim is refused, it buys nothing to get angry with the person you are talking to as they are not the one who actually rejected your claim.
5. If you purchase books through the mail for resale, it may be better to have the shipper use Delivery Confirmation rather than insuring the package. We recently received a shipment of books that were slightly damaged (corners bumped) in transit. The package was insured, but if we tried to collect the insured value, the Post Office would have kept the books. Even though we had to lower the sale price of the books, we still came out ahead by keeping the damaged books rather than simply collecting back our cost and losing the books.
