What Cover Applies to Your Belongings on a European Road Move

"Is it insured?" is the question people ask last, usually once the van is already booked. It deserves to be asked first, because the honest answer is longer than yes or no. Three different things can stand behind your belongings on a European road move, they pay out in very different ways, and one of them almost certainly does not apply to a household move at all.

This guide explains what each one is, where the CMR Convention stops, and the questions to put to whoever is arranging your transport before anything is loaded.

Three Different Things, Often Confused

• Carrier liability. What the transport company owes you if goods are lost or damaged in its care. It is capped, it depends on fault, and the cap is usually calculated per kilogram rather than from what an item is worth.
• A transit or goods in transit policy. Actual insurance on the goods themselves, bought for the shipment, which pays on the agreed value of what was damaged rather than on its weight.
• Your own household or contents insurance. Some policies extend to belongings in transit or in storage during a move. Many do not, or do so only for a named period. It is worth a phone call to your insurer before you assume either way.

When someone says a move is covered, ask which of the three they mean. The word covers all of them and promises none of them.

The CMR Convention, and the Line That Surprises People

International road transport in Europe is governed by the CMR Convention, the 1956 agreement on the contract for the international carriage of goods by road. It is the reason a consignment note follows a truck across borders, and it sets out when a carrier is liable and how much it must pay.

Article 1, paragraph 4 lists what the Convention does not apply to, and the list is short: carriage under an international postal convention, funeral consignments, and furniture removal. A household move, in other words, sits outside the Convention.

That matters more than it sounds. If you are moving the contents of a home, the CMR liability regime is not the floor under your shipment. What stands in its place is the carrier's own trading conditions, whatever national conditions apply on that route, and any policy that has actually been bought for the goods. Some carriers still issue a CMR consignment note for removals and apply its terms by contract, which is a different thing from the Convention applying by force of law. Either way, the answer is in the paperwork, so ask which conditions are being used.

What CMR Pays When It Does Apply

For shipments the Convention does cover, such as general goods and business freight, the structure is worth understanding, because it is also the model most carrier conditions follow.

Under Article 17 the carrier is liable for loss or damage occurring between taking the goods over and delivering them, and for delay. It is relieved of that liability in defined circumstances, including the claimant's own act or neglect, an inherent vice in the goods themselves, and circumstances the carrier could not avoid.

Article 23 then sets how much. Compensation is calculated from the value of the goods at the place and time they were accepted for carriage, not from what replacing them would cost you today. On top of that sits a ceiling: in states party to the 1978 Protocol to the Convention, compensation may not exceed 8.33 units of account per kilogram of gross weight short, the unit of account being the Special Drawing Right as defined by the International Monetary Fund. Carriage charges, customs duties and other charges incurred on the carriage are refunded on top, in full where the goods are a total loss and in proportion where the loss is partial.

Put a number on it. A 20 kg carton reaches a ceiling of 166.6 Special Drawing Rights, and the SDR is an IMF basket whose value against the euro moves daily, so the euro figure is whatever the rate is on the relevant date. If that carton held a laptop and a camera, the cap is the binding number, not the value of what was inside. This is the single most important thing to understand about carrier liability: it is compensation by weight, and a light valuable item is the worst case for it.

The Convention does allow you to raise the ceiling. Under Articles 24 and 26 you can declare a value for the goods above the limit, or declare a special interest in delivery, in both cases against a surcharge agreed in advance and recorded in the consignment note. It has to be done before carriage, not after a claim.

What a Transit Policy Actually Covers

For a household move, a transit policy is usually the thing people mean when they say insurance. It is bought for the shipment, it pays on values rather than weight, and it comes with conditions that decide whether a claim succeeds. The ones that catch people out are consistent across the market:

• A valued inventory. Most policies want a list with a value against each item or category, prepared before collection. No inventory usually means no meaningful claim.
• Owner packed cartons. If you packed the box yourself, cover for breakage inside it is often excluded unless the carton itself shows external damage. This is standard, and it is the reason professional packing is sometimes worth its cost for the fragile part of a load.
• All risks or named perils. An all risks wording covers accidental loss or damage subject to its exclusions. A named perils wording only covers events on its list, such as fire, theft or an accident to the vehicle.
• New for old, or indemnity. Whether you are paid the cost of a replacement or the used value of what was lost changes the size of a settlement considerably.
• Pairs and sets. Damage to one dining chair rarely pays for the set.
• The excess. A deductible applies per claim, which often makes a single broken plate not worth claiming for.

Some things sit outside nearly every transit policy: cash, jewellery, precious metals, passports and documents, data and software, perishable food, plants and animals, and damage that was already there before loading. Items that are restricted or prohibited in transport are a separate question again, and they are covered in our restricted items guidance and in the EU customs guide for personal shipments.

What to Do at Collection and Delivery

Claims are won or lost in the first hour after the vehicle arrives, so the practical steps matter as much as the wording.

1. Photograph valuable and fragile items before they are wrapped, and keep the inventory.
2. Number the boxes and check the numbers off at delivery, before the driver leaves.
3. Inspect for damage while the driver is still there, and write what you find on the delivery document before you sign it. Signing clean makes a later claim much harder.
4. Photograph any damage where it stands, including the packaging it arrived in.
5. Report it in writing within the deadline set by the policy or the carrier's conditions. Those deadlines are short and they are enforced.
6. Keep damaged items until the claim is settled, because an inspection may be required.

Questions to Ask Before You Book

• Which conditions apply to this shipment, and can I see them?
• Is there a transit policy on the goods, or only carrier liability?
• If there is a policy, is it all risks or named perils, and what is the excess?
• Are owner packed cartons covered for breakage?
• What value should I declare, and what does declaring it cost?
• What is the deadline for reporting damage, and to whom?

Any transport company that cannot answer these in writing is telling you something useful about how a claim would go.

How We Handle This at PrimeFlow

PrimeFlow Logistics coordinates transport across Europe through vetted partner carriers. We do not operate the vehicles and we do not issue an insurance policy ourselves, so we will never tell you a shipment is covered as though that came from us. What we do is ask the carrier what liability and what cover apply to your specific load, and pass their answer back to you before you decide anything.

If a load includes something valuable, tell us at the quote stage rather than on collection day. It changes which carrier makes sense, whether declaring a value is worth the surcharge, and sometimes whether a dedicated van with no transfers between vehicles is the better answer than a shared load. For a full household move, the European relocation page explains what we need in order to ask the right questions on your behalf.

Tell us what you are sending and what the most valuable item is. Message us on WhatsApp (+31 612 713 794) or start from the price check on our homepage. It also helps to know your volume, which our guide on estimating shipment volume explains how to work out.

Official Sources

• Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR), 1956, including the Article 1 exclusions and Articles 17, 23, 24 and 26
• 1978 Protocol to the CMR Convention, which sets the limit of 8.33 units of account per kilogram and defines the unit as the IMF Special Drawing Right
• IMF Special Drawing Right valuation, updated daily

This guide gives general information based on rules available in September 2026. It is not legal or insurance advice, and it does not describe the terms of any particular carrier or policy. The conditions that apply to your shipment are the ones written in the documents you are given, so read them before the vehicle is loaded.