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Hello,

I have a couple of questions. I am trying to save someone on the forum from having to pay such high fees at customs on the decks I am sending but at the same time want to insure the package at full value on the off chance the package gets lost or damaged. What is the best way to go about that? Is the United States Post office better or worse than FedEx or United Parcel Service?

Thanks
Pablo

If it's not registered, I would not go for USPS. I've lost way too many packages especially with USPS over a span of 9 months (looking at over 20 right now) Registered mail will be a safer option than declaring the actual value if you want to save $, IMHO. USPS tracking can show it never left the post office it was received but it was then delivered, if you're lucky. Many times mine shows it was stuck in Chicago and never made it over.

Do a comparison with USPS registered vs UPS/FedEx. Then let him decide which option he prefers. That will take the burden off you.
Hope this helps.

It's a hard one, while I understand you want to lower risk, it's not really possible to do both, once a insured value goes up it's going to get hit with taxes and import fees.. and the dreaded delays.

What we do is keep the value at the costs it would be to make the deck, $1-2 and declare that.
So no insurance cover, but what offsets the risk considerably is to ensure you always use a reliable carrier that has full-tracking, that way whenever something goes awry you can follow it up and any investigations have a good chance of getting to the problem, and the receiver can track along the way.