A quick note on what we mean by
‘high value items’ here: some things are of such sentimental value that they’re irreplaceable and therefore priceless. If you’re moving house with belongings that have huge sentimental value, our only advice is to keep those items close to you, package them well and make sure only you handle them because only you will understand their value and treat them accordingly.
The rest of this article is about
moving house with items that have a high monetary value and how to transport those items safely to your new home. Those items can be insured, and should the worst happen you’ll be able to replace them or at least be adequately compensated.
Here are our tips for moving house while keeping expensive, delicate and valuable items safe and in one piece so that you don’t have to make a claim on your insurance!
Preparing to move with valuable items
It’s important that your high value items are packaged properly to protect them from accidental damage during the move - that’s obvious, and we’ll give you some practical tips below on how you can wrap everything up safely and securely. It’s just as important, though, to make sure where delicate, expensive and/or fragile items are packed, so that you can keep an eye on them throughout the moving process.
Decluttering your home will give you less to organise before moving day. Recycle, donate or sell any furniture, furnishings or personal belongings you don’t want to take to your new home. What’s left can then be packed up room by room and labelled for ease of unpacking. The more information you put on your labels now, the less hunting round you’ll have to do later!
You should keep two sets of boxes apart from everything else. These will contain:
- Moving day essentials (e.g. kettle, cups, crockery/cutlery, teabags and coffee, medications, towels, pyjamas, toiletries - things you’ll need soon after arriving in your new home). We have a really useful printable moving house checklist that may help with this.
- Valuable items that can be packed and taken with you in your car. These might be jewellery, ornaments, or documents such as passports and ID.
Those boxes can travel with you on moving day. You’ll know which ones contain delicate or expensive items, so you can be extra careful when packing them in your boot and carrying them around.
Packing valuable items you can take in your car
Documents should be kept together in a wallet so that they’ll stay clean, dry and together in one place.
Any ornaments and jewellery should be carefully packed, but before you do that
take photographs of them all. This is just in case any are damaged or go missing despite your best efforts, as you’ll need to provide proof of what you’ve lost to your insurance company in the event of a claim.
There are all sorts of eco-friendly packaging materials you could make use of to pack around your belongings. You can safely put several delicate items in a large box as long as they don’t have much room to move around. Wrap each item in
eco-friendly bubble wrap,
biodegradable packaging peanuts, good old scrunched-up newspaper or even socks!
As long as the surfaces of each item don’t have the chance to crash against the surfaces of the others, they should be fine. If there’s a lot of space left in your box after you’ve added all your high value items, fill the void with more packaging - or consider putting everything in a smaller box to save space in the car.
Moving with large valuable items
If you have larger items (such as antique furniture, or glass cabinets), these can be tricky to move safely on moving day with your other belongings.
If you have to move everything on the same day and have a removals company doing the packing for you, make sure to
draw their attention to those items that are most prone to damage so that they can ensure they’re wrapped properly and stacked securely in the van.
If you’re packing things yourself, you can use materials such as towels and bedsheets to wrap them up, to avoid breakages or scratches from other items in transit. You could line the floor of the van with towels, and stand or lay your items between mattresses to keep them padded; use other items of furniture to keep everything upright and stop them rolling or sliding when you’re on the road.
A note on insurance
Although fire and theft are the main risks to your contents when they’re at home, there are additional risks in transporting your belongings from one house to another.
Your home contents insurance will cover your belongings in your existing home, and you should be able to transfer your policy to your new home (or arrange a replacement policy), and you could ask either provider if that policy would cover your contents when moving between houses.
Your existing home insurance policy might cover your possessions when moving house but you really need to
check your policy documents. Also check whether any items are excluded from your policy, and whether there are any financial limits on the value of individual items. Some home insurance policies will put a limit of, say, £2000 for each individual item and anything worth more than that would need specifying and covering separately under your policy.
If your existing home insurance doesn’t cover you when moving, you can (and should) take out moving insurance. That way, should the moving van be involved in an accident or disappear, you’ll be able to seek to recover the value of what you’ve lost.
Regardless of the type of insurance, it’s a good idea to take photos of all your belongings (this might be easiest to achieve before you’ve packed - just take videos or photos of each room, with cupboard doors open so that the contents can be seen); also, make a detailed inventory of anything of particularly high value.
Consider using a self storage unit for valuable items
Rather than load your valuable or fragile items into the moving van with everything else, you could move them into a
self storage unit a day or so before moving day. You’ll still need to package them safely and securely to get them to your unit, but you could take one or two items at a time if necessary.
Once they’re in your self storage unit, they’ll be safe, clean and dry until you want to retrieve them and take them to your new home. That way, not only will they be protected during the move but also while you decorate, re-carpet or otherwise organise your new house.
Our units are indoors, and our stores are covered by CCTV, fire and pest protection. You’ll need to take out contents cover to the value of whatever you store, for the unlikely event that something untoward may happen; we can help you to arrange a policy or you can arrange your own.
If you’d like more information on our self storage units, or would like help to reserve one, please
get in touch for some no-pressure, no-obligation advice from one of our friendly team members.