How persistence helped get resolution on shipping insurance claim - KSL.com

seimuy.blogspot.com

Workers at Ekins Garage work on a custom car. (Josh Szymanik, KSL-TV)

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

WEST JORDAN — You can buy shipping insurance to help protect you against a lost, stolen or damaged package — but its coverage often comes down to the fine print in a contract, which tends to favor the shipping company.

Sometimes, being a good old-fashioned squeaky wheel can pay off when you realize you need to file a claim.

Derek Ekins just received a $13,700 check in the mail.

The KSL Investigators first told you about Ekins Garage back in September, after an expensive custom car frame shipped from Ohio showed up pretty banged up.

"It was upside down. Crate was damaged. Clearly, the frame was damaged," Ekins said of the shipment.

By the time he contacted the KSL Investigators, he had been fighting with the shipping company for more than a year.

Even though he had paid for shipping insurance, Worldwide Express offered to pay only a fraction of the actual cost of the damage.

"I feel like I did every step I needed to do to cover my bases, and it wasn't enough," said Ekins.

Stevan Baxter, an attorney who specializes in transportation issues, said that shipping companies tend to have a lot of language in their contracts that can make it tough for a consumer to get paid what they may think they deserve after a shipment is damaged.

"There's different language in each policy that you have to look at and understand," Baxter explained.

"I feel like everybody's trying to just brush it under the rug, hope it goes away and move on, but I don't move on," said Ekins.

It took two years and a call to a TV station, but for Ekins Garage, that persistence has finally paid off.

The shipping company, Worldwide Express, declined to comment for our original report, and emails we sent to the company since then have gone unanswered.