Moving Insurance in Canada: What Is Actually Covered

Three different things get called moving insurance, and only one of them is insurance.

The first is the moving company’s liability under the conditions of carriage your province requires in every household goods bill of lading. That is not insurance, it is a limit on what the carrier owes you, and it applies whether you ask for it or not. The second is the extra coverage a mover sells you, usually called Replacement Value Protection, which is a contractual upgrade to that limit. The third is your own home or tenant policy, which is insurance, and which almost certainly excludes the two things most likely to go wrong on a move.

Getting these confused is how people end up with sixty dollars for a thousand-dollar table. This page separates them and gives you the figures and the clause names to check.

General information only, not legal advice, and not a substitute for reading your own policy wording or your own bill of lading.

The three things, side by side

The word to watch on a mover’s paperwork is “coverage.” It sounds like a benefit being offered to you. In several BC tribunal decisions it turned out to be the clause limiting what the company would pay, and in at least two of those cases the tribunal refused to enforce it partly because a reasonable customer would read “coverage” as a guarantee rather than a ceiling.

What a BC mover owes you by default

British Columbia does not leave this to the contract. Section 37.77(2) of the Motor Vehicle Act Regulations requires a household goods bill of lading to carry the province’s Specified Conditions of Carriage, set out in Schedule 4 of Division 37. Article 9 says loss is computed on the value of the article at the time and place of shipment. Article 10 then caps it.

Article 10, in plain terms. The carrier’s liability must not exceed the greater of the value you declared, or $4.41 per kilogram computed on the total weight of the shipment. That works out to $2.00 per pound. It drops to $1.32 per kilogram per article, $0.60 per pound, only where the consignor releases the shipment in writing to that lower figure.

Two things follow, and both cut against how this is usually explained.

The default is the higher number, not the lower one. You do not start at sixty cents a pound and buy your way up. You start at the greater of your declared value or two dollars a pound on the whole shipment, and you only end up at sixty cents by signing something that says so.

The two figures are not measured the same way, and conflating them produces wildly wrong answers. The $4.41 figure applies to total shipment weight. The $1.32 figure applies per article. A 2,270 kg household, about 5,000 pounds, gives roughly $10,000 of carrier liability at $4.41 per kilogram across the whole load. The same regulation at $1.32 per kilogram per article gives about $60 for a 45 kg sofa. These are not two points on one scale.

Where the industry says something different

Honesty requires flagging that the industry’s own framing contradicts the regulation, and a mover publishing this page should say so rather than quietly benefit from it.

The Canadian Association of Movers tells consumers that under released liability the mover’s liability is limited to $0.60 per pound per article “under provincial conditions of carriage regulations,” and that the released valuation is what applies if you do not buy the increased options. The federal Office of Consumer Affairs says the same: without replacement value protection, the mover’s liability is $0.60 per pound per item. And in one 2018 BC tribunal decision the member treated $0.60 per pound as the cap because the customer had not declared a value or paid for insurance.

The regulation text does not read that way. Read as written, it makes $1.32 per kilogram per article available only on a written release by the consignor. Part of the confusion is Article 10’s own drafting: paragraph (b) talks about additional charges “to cover the additional coverage over $1.32 per kg per article,” which reads as though the lower figure were the free baseline.

What this means for you practically: if your bill of lading contains no written release, and the mover offers you sixty cents a pound, the regulation is on your side. Ask where the release is.

The things that get nothing at all

Article 13 is short and absolute. A carrier is not bound to carry documents, coin or currency, or any articles of extraordinary value, without a special agreement. Where such goods are carried without that agreement and their nature is not disclosed on the face of the bill of lading, the carrier is not liable for any loss or damage. Not capped. Nothing.

BC sets no per-pound threshold defining extraordinary value, unlike the American rule of a hundred US dollars per pound. So jewellery, collections, cash, passports and the like either travel with you or get disclosed on the face of the document.

The $10 per pound figure, backwards

Replacement Value Protection means an item that cannot be repaired is replaced at today’s market price, rather than valued at what it was worth on moving day. It costs extra and it is priced against the value you declare.

The movers’ trade association documents a minimum: replacement value coverage “requires minimum coverage of $10.00 per lb. multiplied by the actual weight of your household goods.” For a 5,000 pound shipment, that means declaring at least $50,000 of value.

A floor you have to declare is not a ceiling on what gets paid. The ceiling is whatever you declare above it. Written as “protection as low as $10 per pound,” a minimum reads like a poor payout, and the number ends up doing the opposite of what it means.

Two caveats worth having. This figure comes from the movers’ trade association and appears in no Canadian regulation, so treat it as industry practice rather than a rule. And motor vehicles, trailers, campers, motorcycles, snowmobiles and boats are handled differently even under replacement value coverage: the association’s own guidance limits them to current market value.

Does your home or tenant insurance cover a move?

Usually yes, and usually not for the damage you are actually worried about.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada treats transportation as one of the named perils in a standard home policy, covering personal property while temporarily away from the home. Individual insurers then attach conditions, and they vary enough that no single number is the answer:

• Intact, in its BC, Alberta and Manitoba tenants wording, has a clause headed “Moving Your Personal Property To Another Home” giving all-risk cover for 90 consecutive days from the date property leaves the principal dwelling, in transit to and at another location in Canada.
• TD Insurance says coverage applies for up to 45 consecutive days for moves within Canada, conditional on insuring both the old and new homes with TD.
• Economical says most policies protect belongings in transit within Canada, and asks policyholders to notify their broker with the dates before the move.
• Square One, a BC-based insurer, says belongings are insured in transit when you transfer your policy, and warns explicitly against assuming that is true of every provider.

The exclusion that guts most moving claims

Here is the part worth reading twice. In Intact’s tenants wording, the list headed “Loss or Damage Not Insured” excludes scratching, abrasion or chipping, and accidental breakage of any fragile or brittle articles. Breakage is covered only where an insured peril, a fire or a theft, caused it. TD names the same exclusion in its own guidance, describing scratches, dents and fragile-item breakage as still excluded. So does the movers’ association.

Scratched furniture and broken dishes are the overwhelming majority of real moving damage. So “your home insurance covers you in transit” is technically true and practically misleading, which is why this page says it out loud even though the conclusion points toward buying the mover’s coverage.

Three more reasons a home-policy claim may not be worth making

It does not increase your limits. Intact’s moving clause says so expressly. You are moving your existing coverage, not adding any.

Your deductible applies. The movers’ association puts current deductibles at “at least $500, and more likely $1,000 today,” and notes that claiming costs you a claims-free discount worth 10 to 20 per cent of your premium. On a $900 loss, that arithmetic can come out negative.

Sublimits bite on exactly what you worry about. Intact’s tenants wording caps money, cash cards and bullion at $1,000, securities at $7,500, and jewellery, watches, gems and furs at $10,000 for theft or mysterious disappearance. Between those limits and Article 13, both routes point the same way: declare it, or carry it yourself.

And storage is a separate question. Economical says items in storage may not be automatically protected. TD suggests adding a “Property in Storage” coverage. If your move has a gap in the middle, ask about it specifically rather than assuming the transit clause stretches over it.

Third-party moving insurance in Canada, honestly

You will read advice telling you to shop for third-party transit insurance instead of buying from your mover. For a move inside Canada, that market is close to non-existent.

The best-known retail moving insurer online, Moving Insurance LLC, is licensed across the United States and does not cover Canadian domestic moves. Insurance specialists the Canadian movers’ association works with broker cargo and warehouse cover to moving companies, not retail policies to households. Searching for a Canadian consumer product returns moving-company marketing pages and lead-generation sites rather than an insurer.

So the realistic options for a BC-to-BC move are the carrier’s liability, the carrier’s upgraded coverage, and your own home or tenant policy. Being told to go shopping for a fourth thing wastes your time.

One change worth knowing about if you are reading this after the end of 2026: British Columbia is introducing a restricted insurance agency licence regime, in force 1 January 2027, with transportation companies as one of the prescribed classes permitted to sell cargo insurance. Applications open in November 2026. Carrier valuation under the conditions of carriage is a limit on the carrier’s own liability rather than a policy of insurance, so it sits outside that regime, but it is a reason to be careful with the word “insurance” for what a mover sells.

What the exclusions actually say, and what they do not

The conditions of carriage list what the carrier is not liable for in Article 5. The list is real, and it is narrower than most movers’ paperwork suggests.

Excluded outright: loss or damage caused by an act of God, public enemies, riots, strikes, a defect or inherent vice in the goods, the act or default of the owner, legal authority or quarantine. Also damage at a pickup or delivery point where nobody was in attendance to receive the goods. And where only part of a set is lost or damaged, the carrier’s liability is for that piece, not the set.

Then comes a second group, and this is where the reading matters. Damage to fragile articles the carrier did not pack and unpack, damage to the mechanical or electronic workings of appliances, instruments and equipment, deterioration of perishable food, plants or pets, and loss of the contents of cartons the customer packed and sealed. All four of those are excluded unless caused by the negligence of the carrier or its employees, and Article 5 closes with a sentence that does more work than anything else in the schedule:

the burden of proving absence of negligence is on the carrier.

So owner-packing does not mean no recourse. It moves the argument to negligence and puts the burden of that argument on the moving company. Federal consumer guidance states flatly that owner-packed items receive no mover liability protection, which overstates it for BC. The harder bar is the one about carton contents: missing items from a box you sealed yourself are excluded unless the box was opened for the carrier’s inspection, itemised on the bill of lading, and receipted.

Article 11 is the companion point. An agreement that goods are carried at the consignor’s risk covers only risks necessarily incidental to transportation, and does not relieve the carrier of liability for negligence, with the burden again on the carrier.

The limit only binds if the paperwork is right

This is the most under-reported thing about carrier liability in British Columbia, and it cuts in the customer’s favour.

The limits in Article 10 live inside a document the regulation specifies in detail. The same section requires the bill of lading to be signed in full by both the consignor and the carrier at the time the goods are accepted for shipment, to carry an attached inventory, to show a space for declared value, to state in conspicuous form that the carrier’s liability is limited by a condition of carriage, and to state, also conspicuously, that the consignee’s signature on delivery does not preclude a later claim within the time limit.

BC Provincial Court has held that where a contract falls short of compliance with the Act or its regulations, the carrier cannot rely on the regulation’s liability limits. The BC Supreme Court has held that a bill of lading signed after delivery was not effective and formed no part of the contract. And Article 17 renders any additional limitation on the carrier’s liability, and any alteration or erasure, without effect unless signed or initialled by both sides.

The practical result is a run of tribunal decisions in which movers lost their caps. Some failed because the clause was never brought to the customer’s attention before the contract was made. Others failed because the drafting was, in the words of one Provincial Court judgment quoted repeatedly since, “anything but clear.” One failed because the customer’s neighbour signed the waybill and had no authority to agree to new terms. Several failed because the company never put its own terms into evidence.

The pattern does not run one way. In at least two decisions the customer was held to the released rate, once where both parties had signed the bill of lading, and once where the customer had signed the front of a waybill acknowledging terms on the reverse and simply had not read them. The tribunal says in its own decisions that its past decisions do not bind it.

The lesson is not that limits never stick. What decides is the document, so read the liability section before you sign rather than on the driveway.

Before the truck arrives

• Ask to see the declared value space on the bill of lading, and fill it in. An undeclared shipment is capped at $4.41 per kilogram of total weight. A declared one is capped at the greater of the two figures.
• Do not sign a written release without understanding what it does. That signature is what drops the ceiling to $1.32 per kilogram per article.
• Take dated photographs of anything you would claim for, close up and from the same distance before and after. One BC claim for a $4,900 refrigerator failed entirely because the “before” photo was taken from across the room and the “after” photo close up, so the tribunal could not rule out a pre-existing dent.
• Keep the inventory. A claim for over $4,300 was dismissed against a mover that filed no evidence at all, because the customer had packed everything herself, provided no inventory, and other companies had handled the same goods.
• Keep receipts and values. Tribunals do not estimate for you. In one case a $3,000 crystal table produced $100 of proven diminution in value.
• Carry documents, jewellery, currency and anything unusual yourself, or disclose them on the face of the bill of lading.
• Ask what happens in storage, and who is liable during it. Get the answer in writing.
• Ask for the certificate of insurance, showing commercial general liability and cargo cover with limits and expiry dates, and ask separately whether goods in storage are covered.

If something goes wrong, the clock is short

Article 12 sets the deadlines, and they are not the ones the internet quotes.

Written notice of loss, damage or delay must reach the original contracting carrier or the delivering carrier within 60 days after delivery, setting out the origin, destination, date of shipment and the estimated amount claimed. Where delivery never happened, the window is 9 months from the date of shipment. The final statement of claim must be filed within 9 months of the date of shipment, which for a long-haul move is tighter than it sounds, because it runs from shipment rather than delivery.

There is an obligation running the other way too: the carrier must acknowledge receipt of your claim within 30 days.

Federal guidance says claims “often must be made within 30 days for local moves and within 60 days for long distance moves.” In British Columbia that understates your rights. BC’s regulation gives 60 days after delivery regardless of distance.

Our step-by-step guide to a mover dispute in BC covers what happens after the notice goes in.

How Secure Moving handles this

Every move goes out on a bill of lading carrying the province’s conditions of carriage, with the inventory attached and the declared value space explained rather than skipped. If you want additional coverage, we will tell you what it costs and what it pays before you sign, not after.

Secure Moving holds $5 million in liability coverage and active WorkSafeBC registration. To have the coverage conversation at the quote stage, our team works across the region as a moving company in Vancouver.

Frequently asked questions

Is moving insurance in Canada actually insurance?

Mostly not. The carrier’s liability under the provincial conditions of carriage is a contractual limit on what the mover owes, not a policy of insurance, and Replacement Value Protection is a higher contractual limit priced by the mover. The only real insurance in the picture is your own home or tenant policy. The distinction matters because insurance and carrier liability are claimed in completely different ways.

What is the default coverage for a move in BC?

Under Article 10 of the conditions of carriage BC requires in household goods bills of lading, the carrier’s liability is the greater of the value you declare or $4.41 per kilogram, about $2.00 per pound, computed on the total weight of the shipment. It drops to $1.32 per kilogram per article, about $0.60 per pound, only where the customer releases the shipment in writing to that figure. Much of the industry describes the lower figure as the standard, so ask to see the release if you are offered it.

What does $10 per pound mean on a moving quote?

It is the minimum value you must declare to buy Replacement Value Protection, not a cap on what gets paid. That figure is set by the movers’ association at $10 per pound multiplied by the actual weight of the shipment, so a 5,000 pound household means declaring at least $50,000. The figure comes from the trade association rather than any regulation.

Does home insurance cover moving damage?

It usually covers belongings in transit within Canada, for a period that varies by insurer from roughly 45 to 90 consecutive days, without increasing your limits and subject to your deductible. What it generally does not cover is scratching, abrasion or chipping, or accidental breakage of fragile articles unless an insured peril caused it. Since that describes most moving damage, check the exclusion list in your own wording before relying on it.

Should I buy the mover’s coverage or use my own policy?

Compare three things: what your own wording excludes, your deductible, and what a claim does to your premium. A $900 loss against a $1,000 deductible and a lost claims-free discount is worth nothing. The mover’s replacement value coverage has no deductible in the usual case and pays at today’s market price, but requires you to declare a high minimum value. In a household with a few genuinely valuable items, declaring value on the bill of lading is often the cheapest useful step.

How long do I have to make a moving damage claim in Canada?

In British Columbia, written notice within 60 days of delivery, or 9 months from shipment where delivery never happened, with the final claim filed inside 9 months of the shipment date. The carrier must acknowledge your claim within 30 days. Other provinces set their own conditions of carriage, and for a move that crosses a provincial boundary it is the conditions of the province where the move originated that apply.