Postal_Guide_July_1957 — Page 29

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INSURANCE

GENERAL INFORMATION

The fee for the insurance of letters and letter packets, which is in addition to the postage and registration fee, is 50 cents for every $300 of the declared value or part of $300 up to a maximum of $1,600.

The insurance service is not universal, but it extends to most countries. The maximum which can be covered is $1,600 but in many countries lower limits are in force, as indicated in Section II of this Guide. For services by air see the Air Mail Leaflet.

The service is governed by international regulations, which prescribe the

in which insured packets must be made up, addressed, sealed and so on; and it is essential that these regulations should be complied with in order to avoid disputes about claims or delays in transmission.

Any insurance effected contrary to the following regulations is invalid.

Three kinds of packets are recognized in the insurance service: insured letters, insured boxes and insured parcels. A letter, box or parcel intended for insurance must be presented at the counter of a post office.

Insured letters and boxes cannot be sent by all the routes open to ordinary letters and may therefore take longer in transit. As a rule, both insured letters and boxes travel more quickly than insured parcels.

An insured article may not be addressed in pencil or bear an address composed of initials.

An insured article may not bear any erasure or correction in the address at the time of posting.

CERTIFICATE OF POSTING

The certificate of posting given for an insured packet shows the amount for which the letter, box or parcel is insured, and the sender or his representative should see that the amount is correctly stated. The fee for insurance, in the form of postage stamps, is affixed to the cover or wrapping of the article. Stamps must not be folded over the edge of the cover, and where more than one stamp is used they must be affixed with space between them.

SEALS

All seals on an insured letter, box or parcel must be of the same kind of wax (or lead or steel in the case of parcels), and must bear distinct impressions of the same private device. A coin may not be used for sealing and the device of the sender may not consist merely of straight, crossed, or curved lines which could readily be imitated.

If an article tendered for insurance does not, in the opinion of the officer of the Post Office to whom it is tendered, fulfil the prescribed conditions as to packing and sealing, it is his duty to refuse to insure it. Nevertheless, the onus of properly enclosing, packing, and sealing the packet lies upon the sender; and the Post Office assumes no liability for loss arising from defects which may not be observed at the time of posting.

INSURED VALUE

The amount for which an article is insured must be written in ink by the sender or his representative both in words and in figures, at the top of the address side of the cover. thus, INSURED FOR ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS: $100. For an insured parcel, the amount must also be entered in the appropriate space on the despatch note, if one is used. No erasure or other alteration of the inscription on the letter, box or parcel. or on the despatch note is allowed. If the amount is entered on the despatch note in the wrong place, a fresh despatch note must be prepared.

A letter, box or parcel cannot be insured for more than the actual value of the contents and packing, or for more than the sum entered under the country of destination shown in Section II of this Guide, but it may be insured for part of its value, and a letter, box or parcel of which the contents have no pecuniary value