--- title: "One Lost Package Shouldn’t Cost You a Customer" url: "https://www.shipstation.com/en-gb/blog/one-lost-package-shouldnt-cost-you-a-customer/" type: "post" modified: "2026-08-12T10:23:32-05:00" --- Your package leaves the building, and from that point, you’re trusting a stranger with a box, a truck, and a schedule. Most of the time, that trust is well placed. Sometimes, things go wrong, even with the most trusted carriers. An estimated [625,000 packages were stolen every day in the US last year](https://chainstoreage.com/survey-package-theft-totaled-128-billion-2025), and each time, sellers discovered the same unpleasant surprise: the carrier only covers the first $100, no matter what was inside. A $330 order results in a $100 payout, and you or your customer covers the rest. That gap is exactly what shipping insurance exists to close, yet many sellers have never set it up or have tried it once and quietly walked away. It’s worth understanding what insurance actually protects, and why it’s easier to use than it used to be. The gap carriers leave open --------------------------- Carrier liability is a flat, generic number. It was never built around your product, your margins, or what your customer actually paid. Ship a $10 candle or a $300 speaker, the default cap treats them the same, usually $100. For anything above that line, the shortfall lands on you. Packages get lost, crushed, or misdelivered every day, at real volume, and every one of those incidents turns into either an absorbed cost or an uncomfortable conversation with a customer who did nothing wrong. Sellers usually notice the gap the first time it costs them money, a lost $330 order that comes back with just $100 compensation, and by then the lesson has already been expensive. Insurance, built around the parcel, not the label ------------------------------------------------- ShipStation’s ParcelGuard Insurance, offered through Shipsurance, is built on one idea: coverage should match the declared value of what you shipped, not the price on the label. Insure a $330 order; that’s what’s protected. Not the postage. Not a flat default. You’re covered up to the actual sales value on approved claims. That distinction is the whole point. A label tells you what it costs to move the box. It tells you nothing about the financial risk if the box doesn’t arrive. Insurance is the part of the process that was actually designed around your bottom line, rather than a one-size-fits-all cap set by someone who’s never seen what you sell. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing ------------------------------------ Insurance isn’t a single switch you flip for every shipment, even if that’s how sellers tend to think about it. You can set it up around the shipments that actually need it: high-value products, easy-to-damage items, specific routes or destinations more prone to loss, particular customers, or carriers. You are in complete control and can pick and choose, at a granular level, which shipments need insurance. That’s the difference between insurance as an on/off setting and insurance as an automation rule. Once it’s scoped to the right criteria, you can build ShipStation automation rules that run in the background and automatically toggle on when those criteria are met. Why it’s worth setting up (or setting up again) ----------------------------------------------- For sellers who’ve never used insurance, the case is straightforward: without it, every shipment valued above $100 leaves an exposed gap that’s yours alone to cover. Full-value coverage closes that gap on every insured order, which matters more the more you ship. Why put your online reviews at risk of being anything other than top-notch? For sellers who tried insurance before and stopped, the objection was usually the claims process, not the coverage. Claims filing used to mean a notarized affidavit, mailed paperwork, and a wait measured in weeks, plenty of friction for a claim that might only be worth $60 or $100. That’s the part that’s changed. Claims are now fully digital, no affidavit required, and coverage extends across more product types than before, so fewer shipments fall into a category that used to be excluded. The value being protected was always the full amount. Getting it back is finally just as fast as everything else in your shipping process for approved claims. **The core distinction: coverage is set at the declared value of the goods shipped, not the cost of the shipping label, so a $330 order is protected for $330, not the carrier’s flat $100 default.** ShipStation’s insurance also now covers even more; nine new product categories are now eligible for coverage, including firearms, tobacco and cigarettes, cotton, glass, screens, neon items, stone & ceramic slabs, and rocks & geodes. A $330 order, two endings ------------------------- Say a $330 order goes missing in transit. Without insurance, the carrier covers $100, and you’re left explaining to a good customer why their refund came up $230 short or quietly covering the difference yourself. Either way, the loss is yours to manage. Now run it again with insurance in place, declared at the order’s retail value. The package still goes missing, but the claim tells a different story. You open the shipment up in ShipStation, describe what happened, and submit the claim, no notary, no envelope, no month-long silence while a form sits on someone’s desk. For approved claims, the full $330 is reimbursed because that’s what was actually insured. Same missing package, same bad morning, a completely different outcome by the afternoon. Protect the parcel, not just the label -------------------------------------- ParcelGuard doesn’t ask you to change the way you ship. It gives you a smarter way to protect the retail value of what you’re already sending. If something is lost or damaged, insurance gives you a faster path to recover the retail value on an approved claim, helping protect your bottom line without waiting weeks for a limited carrier liability claim to settle. **[See how insurance works in ShipStation](https://www.shipstation.com/start-a-free-trial/)**! *Offered through Shipsurance. Terms and conditions apply.*