Posted By:
Judge Dred (Fred)I don't want to sound like I'm defending any auction house or their practices but:
A) They probably have an arrangement where they are responsible for charging the appropriate rate on the insurance and then reimburse the insurance company
B) They self insure the items and they calculate how much of a hit they take on lost or damaged items. I would venture to guess that this doesn't happen often and the result is that they make a little off of this but in the end could you imagine if someone had a $50K item that was lost or damaged? It would take a lot of that self insurance money to cover it.
- $6.2K ($49.06 or about .8% of total value)
- $13K ($104.49 or about .8% of total value).
You have to figure that they have base shipping charges and the rest of the money would be considered insurance.
Judging by the charges mentioned in the two early posts it appears that the s/h is also based on final value and yes, it seems like the "excess" charge is probably for insuring the package. I would fully expect that if my package was damaged or didn't arrive that the auction house would be responsible for the auction lot item.
Lets figure about .55% for insurance. That would be about $550 to insure $1,000,000 in auction items. I would want to be covered and the $550 for having it insured would seem minimal if you're spending $1M.
Does any of that make sense or should I go back to drinking beer and watching the football game?