insurance and shipping with UPS

I recently had a similar problem with FedEx but I had done all the packing myself. I was able to sell the item that had slight damage but lost $2K in the deal. My packing was actually overdone but "gorillas" must have handled it in transit. 

While I agree with some of the comments here regarding going nuclear on the packaging somebody has to pay for it.
In todays market try asking the buyer to pay an extra $150 to help protect his purchase, they are just going to move right along 99% of the time.
So now the seller has to stump up and this cuts into an already greatly reduced baseline due to the terrible selling conditions in the market right now. Lets face it about the only way anything is selling is on price period, does not really matter what it is.
Yes what cost to protect the goods being shipped is the moral story here and again agreed on principle.
But when it boils down to a deal where you are likely already bleeding money it may just not be financially viable.

I have currently been dealing with UPS shipping around 19 years and have learned some very valuable lessons during that time. First of all if something has value over $100 dollars you need to insure for over the based value of what you are shipping or they absolutely will not cover it, also always pack the item yourself and never trust anyone to do it for you. If the item has a lot of weight I would simply not ship UPS as it will get damaged or destroyed. If I am forced to ship a heavy item with them pack it like it is being protected from a nuclear blast! We will pack the box inside another box padding all with no room for movement of the item and that way it has a buffer. Also the UPS area you are in will have a rep you can reach out to and this may help you with dealing with the franchise since they are representing their company. Good Luck!

Here is my somewhat jaundiced view of shipping in the USA from the last 20 years.

Small items up to about 2-3lb weight I find the USPS is very good and fairy priced, tbh in all this time they have never damaged anything and only lost one item.

Medium weight items up to abut 15lb is pretty much a wash cost wise between USPS,UPS and Fedex. Again USPS have been good, Fedex have been good and the only times I tried UPS resulted in damage or seriously delayed delivery!

Heavy items over 30lb it is no contest , Fedex are usually far and away cheaper. Their service is faster than UPS, usually by at least a day on say coast to coast . They have not damaged anything as of yet or lost anything. UPS I have already detailed one of their train wrecks which was not the only one.
In my area at least Fedex also delivers normal ground on a Saturday without having to pay extra for this, UPS do not.

saying all of that I do use UPS a lot...….for next day air letters, this they have been very good at for 20 years never losing one or damaging one, I suspect a completely different department. 

I have also had issues with UPS. Sent an SME 345 tonearm to a friend in California (I’m in in the Toronto area). I keep all my original packaging for ALL my gear, so no problem with me packing it properly in it’s original packaging, and then double boxing. I brought it to UPS and was told that in order to have it insured, it would have to be packed by UPS !! Yeah right, like I’m going to let those chimps handle a tonearm !! I opened my double box, and the original SME packaging and asked if they could possibly package it better than the manufactures original packaging. The answer was obviously "no". So, they agreed to insuring if they did the double boxing (for an additional fee of course) So it arrives in LA, and of course, it’s damaged!! Go figure!! We fought with UPS on both ends for weeks. Luckily we both had photos pre and post shipping. We were eventually awarded partial compensation (around 75%) if I remember correctly. We settled for this, as the damage was purely cosmetic, and not affecting the performance of the arm. UPS is not to be trusted is my lesson learned. Now I have another shipping issue coming up that I am dreading. I bought a ClearAudio Double Matrix Pro Sonic RCM about a year and a half ago. It has to go back to the importer in Montreal for a warranty repair. It is fairly heavy, about 40 lbs. and is very expensive. I now have to figure out a method of getting it from here to there, and properly insuring it for replacement value. I am almost considering driving the 8 - 10 hrs each way to be on the safe side. What a hassle shipping has become.