Before hiring a moving company, you'll want to get a quote that details how much it will cost to move your belongings. Often, moving quotes are complex and include several different charges that detail each part of the moving process. Optional services, however, are frequently not included in quotes -- because these services are optional. If you're hiring a moving company or comparing quotes from several moving companies, there are two optional services that you should make sure are included in each quote that you get. They are moving insurance and packing.

You Need Moving Insurance

Moving insurance might be an optional feature that you can add to your moving quote, but you should treat it as a required service -- not an optional one. Unless you have worldwide coverage, which provides you with insurance coverage for your possessions anywhere in the world, your renters or homeowners policy may not provide coverage for your belongings once they leave your home. By purchasing moving insurance from the moving company you hire, you can make sure all of your belongings are fully insured -- even if you don't have worldwide coverage through an insurer.

You Have Choices for Moving Insurance

When choosing moving insurance coverage, you'll have three options to pick from:

• declared value coverage
• assessed value coverage
• full value coverage

If any insurance is included standard in your moving quote, it's likely declared value coverage. This is both the least expensive and least protective of the three options. It provides you with a specific dollar amount of coverage per pound of belongings. For instance, you might receive $0.85 of coverage for every pound. Under this type of coverage, you would receive $42.50 if a 50-pound box were damaged during your move -- regardless of whether it held 50 pounds of expensive electronics or cheap paperback books.

Assessed value coverage is typically reserved for items of high worth, such as particularly valuable jewelry, firearms or art. This type of coverage protects items for their entire worth, but the value must be agreed upon by both you and the moving company beforehand, and each item's value must be detailed. Therefore, it's impractical to insure everything you own with assessed value coverage.

Full value coverage works much like a renters or homeowners insurance policy would except a full value moving insurance policy lasts only for the duration of your move. Any full value coverage policy will have limits, exclusions and deductibles, just like a renters or homeowners insurance policy would. Many moving companies will let you pick specific coverage options that let you customize the full value policy to your needs.

You May Need Packing Services

If you opt to purchase moving insurance from a moving company, you may also need to pay for their packing services. Insurance policies offered by moving companies differ, but many won't cover belongings that aren't professionally packed. The underwriters of these policies want to be sure any damage that occurs isn't due to the improper packing and, therefore, require people purchasing their insurance coverages to also pay for professional packing.

If your insurance coverage requires you to pay for packing services, make sure that you don't pack any boxes. Even though you may want to reduce the cost of the packing services by packing a few boxes of durable items yourself, it may void your coverage for those boxes. Your insurance might not even provide protection for those boxes if they're stolen because you packed them.

If you're preparing to move and getting quotes from one or more moving companies, make sure each quote you get includes insurance coverage and, if required, packing services. These features, which are sometimes optional, will increase the cost of your move -- but they'll also make sure that your belongings are safely protected throughout the relocation. They're a small price to pay for the security that they provide, and you shouldn't treat them as optional. For more information, consider contacting a professional like those at Wheaton World Wide Moving.