Suing moving company

[Javatar]

Bit of an odd one.

Just completed our move out of HK and items arrived, some broken. Livid as we ordered crating for some items and that was not done by the moving company, surprise surprise which items arrived broken.

We've asked for compensation on the crate at the very least and they're staying mum on that. Some items are insured, but with a high deductible. They're just asking us to process the insurance through them - but out of principle, Im considering requesting compensation for items not insured, and also for having to cover the deductible in the first place.

In my view - first, taking/not taking insurance doesn't actually absolve moving companies of liability - doesn't mean they can just do shoddy packing, chuck our boxes around and wash their hands of it. Second, the deductible would not have been necessary for some items but for the lack of crating.

I'm considering running a small claims case against them as a last resort - but doing this from overseas seems overkill. Should I just get over it? Losses (if I successfully claim insurance) will be in the region of HK$5k, not including cost of crating which hopefully they will reimburse me on.

I won't name and shame them yet, until there's some resolution.

[Elegiaque]

Others will be able to offer better advice, but just off the top of my head.... $5k isn't a lot
Why were some items not insured? How much is the deductible? Some loss will have to be taken into consideration with a big move. It's just how it goes. And by the way, we experienced something similar - on day of packing/move, they started to run out of materials, and didn't have any special packaging for my large ceramic Chinese flower pots (which we had clearly told them would be a part of everything). They improvised packaging and said they'd put in crates at their Centre. It worked. We loss a cheap glass TV stand, though, which in retrospect was stupidly packed. Sadly, some of our hard drives didn't do well, which can't be replaced. We got back around $8k maybe, not sure...I understand on the day, it's super stressful, there's a team working, you can't monitor everything. Very stressful, intense few hours.

(our company was a more local one, not one of the big international names...)

[Javatar]

Hey thanks for giving me some perspective. I think I'll just leave it then. Just quite annoyed with the crap level of packing, especially my flat screen OLED and computer monitor which were perfectly fine.

I didn't insure a solid wooden chair (didn't think it could break!) And some plates which weren't worth much, but had sentimental value.

Deductible US$500.