5 ways to reduce moving-day damage claims.

Damage claims get blamed on the crew more often than they should be. In most cases, the crew did exactly what they were told, with the information they had. The actual failure usually happened earlier, before the truck was even loaded.

1. Know what's fragile before you arrive

A crew that finds out a glass cabinet is fragile by picking it up is already behind. Fragility needs to be flagged during the inventory stage, not discovered on the day, so it can be planned for: wrapped properly, loaded last, and never stacked under anything heavier.

2. Load heaviest and most stable items first

A truck packed in the order items happen to come out of the house, rather than by weight and stability, is a truck where something eventually shifts in transit. A deliberate loading order, heavy and stable at the front, fragile and soft at the back, near the door, isn't just tidier. It's the difference between a stable load and one that moves every time the truck brakes.

3. Don't estimate weight by eye

Crews are good at estimating weight from experience, but "good" isn't the same as "reliable enough to plan a load around." An actual weight figure per item, even an estimated one, gives the crew something firmer to plan the load against than a glance and a guess.

4. Give the crew the plan before the truck is half full

A loading plan is only useful if the crew sees it before they start loading, not halfway through when the easy decisions are already made. Handing over a plan at the start means the crew is executing a decision, not improvising one under time pressure.

5. Make the inventory visible to everyone on the job

Damage claims are also disputes, and disputes are worse without a record. An inventory taken before the move, with photos, gives both the moving company and the customer a shared reference point for what existed and what condition it was in, rather than two different memories of the same afternoon.