Executor of Wills

Some while ago I had to act as an executor of a will. This was relatively straight forward as these things go but there was a collection of porcelain and pottery that needed to be sent to beneficiaries. Due to the anticipated value of these items the Beneficiaries were a little shy of collecting them themselves which I believe was wise.

Fairly obviously the solution was to get in the professionals to deal with it but the simplest solutions often carry their own hidden complexities the mists of which can only be penetrated by fellow professionals in their field. I therefore decided on the following:

They would have to provide the packing service.

Collection and delivery must be door to door.

Payment must be by cash on delivery.

Adequate insurance must be available.

As the items to be shipped were known to be valuable I had them professionally valued before I made any arrangements as this had not been done for some years and I arranged this through the same auctioneers and valuers as had handled these matters when the deceased’s husband was still alive and when these matters had been attended to on a regular basis. This turned out to be a wise decision as the valuer who had handled the matter in the past was still in harness and knew the collection well although he was disappointed to see it being split up.

The decision to arrange a valuation was a good one as even no longer a collection, the individual items had a high net worth, it was also valuable for another reason, it narrowed down the field in respect of the shippers, some were just not prepared to take the responsibility for packing the goods which I think is fair enough and best said at outset, the next problem was insurance.

Of the companies who were prepared to quote for the full deal all offered insurance packages and being a pernickety sort of person I asked to view the policy wording; my, what a commotion this caused amongst a few contenders, but the majority had them to hand.

Apart from my firm’s and my own reputation, I was concerned about two things, the adequacy of the “Liability Insurance” in respect of the packing service and the terms and particularly the exclusions in respect of the “Goods in Transit” insurance cover on offer.

As I expected the liability insurance presented no problems as to wording but in some instances the indemnity limit was too low for overall package values and “Excess of Loss” cover would have been required, this narrowed the field further.

The “Goods in Transit” cover was another matter and I was not at all satisfied with either the clauses and exclusions or the price for that matter so ultimately I took this issue out of the equation when selecting my carrier and made my own arrangements through a specialist broker. This is a choice I would recommend to anyone especially if they have no knowledge or a limited knowledge of the subject.

As a result of seeking professional independent advice from an “insurance Broker” I not only got the far wider cover I desired, but at a much lower price.