Moving insurance in Vietnam: cover everything, or only what matters
Not every shipment needs the same protection. Asia Relocation Vietnam will insure a whole household, or only the pieces that would genuinely hurt to lose — and will tell you honestly which of the two your inventory calls for.
Most insurance conversations start from the wrong end — the premium — and end with a policy that covers a sofa as attentively as a violin. The useful question comes first: what, in this shipment, would actually be a problem to lose?
Because the answer varies, so does the cover. A family shipping a full house usually insures the lot. Someone leaving Ho Chi Minh City with a bike, a laptop and two suitcases often does better insuring the three things that matter and accepting the rest. Both are legitimate, and we will say which one your inventory points to.
What does not vary is the arithmetic underneath. A mover's liability is set by weight, not by value, so it protects a wardrobe better than a camera. Cover replaces that with your declared value. Asia Relocation Vietnam builds the inventory, places the policy through Inter Trans Insurance Services (ITI), and handles the claim from here if one is ever needed.
What a policy answers for here, and what it never will
Reading the right-hand column before signing is what keeps a claim from becoming a discussion.
Covered by the policy
- Breakage and damage during packing, transit and unpacking — including the lift, the stairwell and the loading bay.
- Theft or loss in transit or while the goods are in storage, where that storage is declared.
- Typhoon, flood and fire: named events, not an afterthought, in a country where the storm season is a fixture.
- Selected items only, if that is what you choose — the artwork, the antiques, the server — each listed and valued.
- The claim file, assembled in Vietnam from the inventory we made and carried through with the insurer.
What is insured, and for how much, is listed line by line before departure.
Outside the cover
- What you packed yourself. A carton closed before we arrived cannot be assessed at origin, so it cannot be covered as if it had been.
- Anything not on the list. Partial cover means the list is the policy: what is not on it is not insured.
- Age and humidity's slow work. A policy answers for an event during the move, not for the state goods were already in.
- The move itself. Cover accompanies a shipment; the shipment is an international move or a domestic one.
- Consignments with their own regime. A vehicle or an animal is not covered by a household policy.
Say what travels and we will say which policy it belongs under.
Five ways to insure a move, from everything to almost nothing
The choice is an arbitrage between cost and exposure, and it should be made deliberately.
All-risk on the full inventory
The whole household, declared item by item, covered against damage, theft and natural events from packing to delivery. The usual answer for a family shipping a home out of Ho Chi Minh City.
Named items only
Artwork, antiques, instruments, a server: the pieces whose loss would matter, insured individually while the rest travels uncovered. The list has to be honest, because here the list is the policy.
Total loss only
Answers for catastrophe and nothing short of it. Defensible for a low-value consignment, provided nobody assumes it will pay for a broken cabinet on arrival in Hanoi.
Cover that includes the storage weeks
Storm season moves schedules, and goods end up waiting. Declared under the policy, those weeks are covered; left undeclared, they are the gap where a delayed shipment sits.
Corporate cover across several moves
Group coverage for employees and company assets, one level applied consistently, certificates issued where an employer or an auditor requires them. Fewer decisions per family, one contact for HR.
From the question « what would hurt to lose » to a settled claim
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The inventory, and a frank conversation
What is shipping, and what within it carries the value. This is where whole-shipment or named-item cover is decided, on the list rather than on a feeling.
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Declared value, item by item where it counts
Replacement cost at destination. We flag anything that looks under-valued, because under-declaration cuts a settlement proportionally and nobody enjoys learning that afterwards.
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The policy, placed through ITI
Written against the inventory, with the storage weeks included when they are foreseeable and certificates issued where a company needs them.
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Loading day in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi
The handling risk concentrates here: lifts, stairwells and loading in dense traffic. Packing standards and photographs at this stage are what a claim later rests on.
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Delivery, and a claim if it comes to one
Damage noted before signing, concealed damage inside the policy window. We assemble the file here and follow it through with the insurer rather than handing you a form.
Four inventories, four sensible answers
Families shipping a full household
Heirlooms and children's furniture alongside ordinary things. Whole-inventory cover, and time spent on the handful of items that are irreplaceable.
Younger expats with a light shipment
Electronics, a bike, a few boxes. Named-item cover often makes more sense than insuring furniture that could be replaced for less than the premium.
Career movers on a tight date
No time to deliberate. The inventory and the cover are settled in one pass, and the policy is issued before the truck is loaded.
Companies covering staff and equipment
Group cover across several employees, plus office assets that need certificates. One standard applied to everyone rather than a negotiation per move.
The lift, the traffic, and the storm season
In Vietnam the exposure is rarely at sea. It is in the first hour and in the waiting.
Ask anyone who has moved out of a Ho Chi Minh City apartment where things get damaged, and the answer is not the ocean. It is the service lift, the stairwell, and loading a truck into traffic that will not wait. That is why packing standards and photographs at origin matter more to a claim than anything that happens later.
The second exposure is time. Between June and November a schedule can move, a vessel can be delayed, and goods wait in storage — covered if the storage was declared, uninsured if it was not. Whether the move is leaving Vietnam or crossing Hanoi, those two moments are where a policy earns its keep.
What clients ask before choosing a level of cover
Can we insure only part of the shipment?
What does the mover's own liability cover?
What risks does the cover actually respond to?
How is the insured value decided?
Are city traffic and weather really a factor?
Who underwrites the policy?
What happens if something is damaged on delivery?
Does the cover apply to a move inside Vietnam?
Where cover stops and the shipment begins
The shipment this cover rides on
Survey, crating, freight and export formalities for a household leaving Vietnam or arriving in it.
Moving a home across a border →The whole moving service
What Asia Relocation Vietnam runs in the country, and which part of it your move actually needs.
Moving services in Vietnam →Tell us what you would not want to replace
We build the inventory around that answer, price whole-shipment and named-item cover side by side, and put both in writing with their exclusions.
Ask for a cover quotation →