What Happens if Movers Lose Your Stuff?
The mover's liability pays first, often just cents per pound unless you paid more for coverage. Your policy may cover the rest.
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When the mover's coverage falls short
Movers are liable for your stuff under federal rules, but the basic coverage they must offer is weight-based, around 60 cents per pound unless you paid extra for full value protection. A 20-pound box with a broken laptop inside gets you maybe 12 dollars. This is where your home policy can step in, since personal property coverage follows your belongings even when they're not in the house, including during a move. Check your policy for how it treats moving damage and whether a deductible applies. You'll need proof of what you owned and its value, so photos, receipts, or a home inventory made before the move matter. High-value items like jewelry or electronics may hit a category limit, which is worth checking before anything gets packed.
A single limit can decide whether this is worth pursuing. If that broken laptop and a few other boxed items add up to more than the mover's weight-based payout plus a deductible, your policy may cover the difference. If your household items sit near a jewelry or electronics sublimit, the gap could run the other way. A quick look at what's out there shows where your current coverage stands against it.
How do you actually file the claim and get paid
Start with the mover. Federal rules require them to have a claims process, and most give you nine months from delivery to file. Write down the damaged or missing items, when you noticed the loss, and what you paid for the move. If you bought full value protection, the mover owes you the item's value or repair cost, not the per-pound rate. If you didn't, expect the weight-based minimum, and expect it to disappoint.
For the home insurance side, call before you assume anything. Ask the insurer or your agent whether a moving loss is treated like a regular personal property claim, whether a deductible applies, and whether there's a time limit for reporting it. Some policies want notice within a set number of days of discovering the loss, so don't wait months to ask just because the mover's claim is still open. You can often run both claims at the same time.
Proof is what turns a claim into a payment. A home inventory with photos or video, made before the move, is the strongest version of this, but receipts, credit card statements, and even old insurance appraisals for valuables work too. For anything without a clear price tag, like a dresser that's been in the family for decades, a reasonable replacement cost estimate from a similar item for sale is usually accepted. Insurers settle on actual cash value or replacement cost depending on your policy, and that difference matters more as items age.
If the mover pays something first, tell the home insurer. Most policies don't let you collect twice for the same loss, but they will cover the gap between what the mover paid and what the item was actually worth, minus your deductible. That gap is often where the real money is, especially for electronics or furniture that the per-pound formula undervalues badly. Keep every document from the mover's claim, since the insurer will likely ask for it before paying the difference.
What if the stuff was stolen instead of lost in the move
Theft works differently from a dropped box or a damaged dresser. If someone breaks into your car, your storage unit, or your house and takes your belongings, that's a theft claim under your home policy, not a moving damage claim, and it usually gets handled the same way regardless of where the theft happened. Personal property coverage follows your things, so a laptop stolen from a hotel room or a bike taken from a car in a parking lot is generally covered the same as if it had been taken from your living room.
The limits are where theft claims get complicated. Most policies cap how much they'll pay for certain categories without a separate rider, and jewelry is the one that catches people most often. A standard policy might limit jewelry theft to a figure in the low thousands total, no matter what the rings were actually worth. Cash has its own, usually much lower, limit, often just a few hundred dollars. Firearms, furs, and collectibles sometimes have their own caps too. If what was taken is worth more than the category limit, scheduling the item is the only way to close that gap. Scheduling means adding it to your policy by name with its own stated value. This is worth doing before anything happens, since you can't add a schedule to cover something already stolen.
Proving what was taken is harder with theft than with a move, because there's no shipping paperwork and often no witness. Police reports help establish that a theft occurred and when. Beyond that, the burden is the same as any property claim. You'll want photos, receipts, bank or credit card statements, serial numbers for electronics, and appraisals for anything valuable. A home inventory finished before the theft, even a simple video walkthrough of each room and closet, tends to settle these claims faster because there's no dispute about whether you owned the item or what condition it was in.
Report a theft to the insurer promptly, since policies often set a window for notice, and file the police report first if possible since insurers typically ask for the report number. If only some of what was stolen is covered and the rest falls outside a sublimit, the insurer will usually explain which items hit the cap and pay out the maximum for those while covering the rest in full. Checking where those sublimits sit against what's actually in the house, before a theft forces the question, is the only way to know if a schedule is worth adding.
Before anything happens
Find the personal property section on your declarations page and check the jewelry, cash, and electronics limits against what you actually own. If anything sits above the limit, scheduling it now is the only way to close that gap later.
