Best service for shipping something large, fragile, and expensive?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a musical instrument I’m looking to ship, and at this point I’m trying to decide between FedEx and UPS. (USPS is out due to a friend’s horror story of them breaking an expensive item and then refusing to pay its full value, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to pay anything at all.)

At this point, I want the service that has the best chance of the item arriving intact, and, if it doesn’t, I want it to pay out on the insurance with a minimum of fuss.

What are your thoughts?

2

How large, how fragile, how valuable?

You may find it’s cost effective to call your favorite airline and book a round trip flight for you and a one-way ticket for the instrument in its own seat. Last I looked, FedEx and UPS both charge around 90 cents per $100 declared value, so if you want $5,000 coverage, you’re paying $450 for it, on top of the shipping.

3

If it’s really fragile and expensive and less than 1000 miles one way I’d just U-Haul or drive it there myself. Most musicians who ship have special cases that are quite expensive. I shipped a pricey guitar with case cross country once via USPS and double boxed it and by the time it shipped it looked like a short coffin. It got there OK.

4

There are horror stories with all the carriers. You need to pack the instrument carefully:
https://www.google.com/search?q=pack+fragile+musical+instrument

5

I’ve had UPS refuse to pay the claim before. They are happy to TAKE your money, they just won’t honor the claim.

6

That would be $45, not $450.

7

I saw a guy unpack a guitar like that. One of those aluminum rectangular cases around guitar size stuffed with foam, and that was put in a steamer trunk size case packed with more foam. I don’t know what made it so valuable but if you have a one of kind instrument what else can you do?

8

Generally if it’s fragile and pretty large, you probably won’t want to ship with UPS’ lowest-cost options. You may want to decide looking into trucking companies, and go to get some fragile stickers on top of that. They may or may not provide a pallet. Also, insuring it may be a wise consideration