Clarify the liability for damage compensation of insured express delivery
2022-07-16
For insured goods, consumers generally understand that "after being lost or damaged, the express delivery enterprise should make full compensation according to the insured amount", but the insured provisions of the express delivery company are often not the case, which is very prone to disputes at this time. Recently, the people's Court of Pudong New Area, Shanghai made a judgment on a dispute over express service contract, holding that the defendant's express company did not use a reasonable way to remind the sender to pay attention to the compensation limit clause, and decided to compensate the plaintiff's trading company 160000 yuan at its discretion. The basic situation of the case is that a trading company of the plaintiff paid a total freight of 980 yuan and an insured fee of 16 yuan to the defendant express company for the consignment of 250 bottles of whisky with a unit price of more than 1000 yuan and a total price of 260000 yuan. However, the vehicle caught fire accidentally on the way, and all the goods were damaged. The plaintiff demanded full compensation, but the express company said that it could only compensate 2000 yuan in accordance with the insured terms, on the grounds that "the goods were lost due to an accident during transportation, which is a common risk that cannot be avoided, and the shipper did not change the insured amount when placing an order", so it can only compensate according to the minimum insured amount of 2000 yuan. After hearing, the court held that in this case, the consumer did not inform the actual value of the goods, and the express company did not clearly prompt the standard terms, but directly checked the terms for the consumer by default. Both parties have certain responsibilities, so the above judgment was made. Insurance is a kind of mailing and delivery business with additional charges, which is usually used for customers' mailing and delivery of more valuable items and securities. In addition to paying the normal freight, the sender also has to pay a certain amount of insurance fee. Once the goods are lost or damaged, the express delivery enterprise will compensate according to the insured amount. However, in practice, all express delivery companies have different requirements and billing methods for insurance, and the insurance costs differ significantly. The insurance costs of express mail with the same declared value may differ by nearly ten times. In addition, for insured goods, consumers generally understand that "after loss or damage, the express delivery enterprise should make full compensation according to the insured amount", but the insured provisions of express delivery enterprises are often not the case, and disputes are very easy to arise at this time. On the whole, in real life, after the insured goods are lost or damaged, the amount that express delivery enterprises are willing to pay is often lower than consumers' expectations and the actual loss value of the goods. For example, some express delivery enterprises stipulate that after the goods are lost or damaged, if the consumer is "fully insured" or "over insured", he will generally compensate according to the actual value of the goods (the actual value is proved according to invoices, contracts, payment vouchers, etc.). If the consumer is "not fully insured", he can only compensate according to the proportion of the insured price. Article 833 of China's Civil Code stipulates that the amount of compensation for the damage and loss of goods, if the parties have agreed, shall be in accordance with their agreement; If there is no agreement or the agreement is not clear, it shall be calculated according to the market price of the place where the goods arrive at the time of delivery or should be delivered. If laws and administrative regulations have other provisions on the calculation method and limit of compensation, such provisions shall prevail. This means that as long as the express delivery enterprise recognizes the insured amount declared by the sender when insuring, it should make full compensation according to the insured amount after the goods are lost or damaged. However, because the loss rate of goods is not high, some express delivery personnel basically do not review or neglect to verify the insured value of consumers when receiving orders, allow consumers to fill in the insured amount, and even acquiesce in consumers' over insurance (express delivery enterprises can charge more insurance fees, but once the goods are lost, express delivery enterprises will compensate according to the actual value of the goods according to the certificate of value of the goods provided by consumers), but after the accident, If consumers cannot provide proof of the value of the goods, the express company will refuse to compensate, thus causing disputes. The author believes that this "practice" of neglecting to check the value of goods is obviously unfair to consumers. Even if the consumer fails to insure the price of the goods, and the express delivery enterprise loses or damages the goods due to its own fault, as long as the consumer can provide proof of the value of the goods, it should also compensate according to the actual value of the goods. After all, after consumers pay the freight, express companies have the obligation to deliver the goods on time and safely. In order to avoid compensation disputes and even resort to justice, for express delivery enterprises, if consumers are insured, they should carry out effective value review before insuring. During transportation, they should also train employees to avoid violent sorting, achieve safe transportation, and strive to deliver the goods to the consignee intact. Once the goods are lost or damaged, they should compensate consumers in time according to the agreement or legal provisions. For consumers, it is necessary to properly keep the value certificate of the consigned goods, so as to realize the smooth claim in case of loss or damage of the goods. For goods without value certificate, especially fragile and vulnerable high-value goods, it is necessary to select a suitable and reliable mode of transportation, verify the contract terms in advance, and avoid wrangling in the claim, causing damage to their own rights and interests. (xieqingfu) (outlook new era)
Edit：Luo yu Responsible editor：Wang xiao jing
Source：People's Court Daily
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