Adding Shipping Insurance Cover to your shipping rates

In an ideal world, parcels would never get lost.

Unfortunately this is something that all online merchants encounter from time to time. That's where Shipping Insurance comes in. Depending upon the shipping company you choose to use, you may find that your shipments are already covered for loss up to a certain value limit, and that additional cover is available for a small fee.

What is Shipping Insurance?

If a carrier loses your parcel, then they will reimburse you for the value of the lost item, up to a maximum limit defined by the level of cover purchased.

In order to get insurance for a parcel, you will pay a small fee for each parcel, depending on the value of the item that you are trying to cover.

Why do I need Shipping Insurance

In general, the shipping rates that you define for your store will define the cost of shipping your parcels to the customer, and these are mostly based upon the weight of the parcels. That means that items that are physically similar will cost the same to ship, regardless of whether the item is worth $5 or $500. If your $500 item goes missing, then that's a way bigger problem than if the $5 item has been lost.

Shipping Insurance means that you are relieved of the risk of dealing with these potentially big losses.

What are some examples of insurance cover?

The prices quoted here are valid as of August, 2025. Please check with the carriers directly for the current terms.

For Australian customers, the national carrier, Australia Post provides a standard cover of $100 for all items. The cost of this is already included in the price of sending the item. For additional cover, Australia Post charges $2.50 for each additional $100 of cover that is added to cover the full value of the item.

Sendle also offer a standard cover of $100. They charge $1.95 for each additional $100 of cover.