Top Tips - When a Cross-Country Move Goes Wrong

Many homeowners dread moving house, especially a cross-country move. There is so much that could go wrong with a relocation especially when you are traveling over a great distance with all your worldly goods packed in vehicles. And if something goes wrong with your move across country what do you do? In this article we offer you some top tips to help ensure a smooth house move, and to control a challenging project like your relocation. Read on to learn more.

Moving Nightmares: When Your Cross-Country Move Goes Wrong

family packing for a cross-country move — Preparing for a cross-country move takes careful packing and a study of what you want to pay to carry with you

Photo by cottonbro studio

If you want to move from one side of the country to the other, or several states away, then ideally, everything will go just the way you planned it. Maybe you envision the whole process from start to finish. Just like anything else in life, though, a cross-country move can go wrong.

How to Ensure your Cross-Country Move Goes Well

Ensuring that your move goes according to plan takes some forethought and more than a little luck. You should try to go into with a sense of humor.

Moving can easily become a frustrating experience if something goes awry. If you try to stay flexible and accept any missteps with good grace, that can only benefit your mood and outlook.

You can probably predict certain situations that can go wrong with a cross-country move. While you can’t always anticipate every issue that you might run into, if you think about the most likely problems that might arise, you can probably avoid them before they ever happen.

Let us talk about some moving nightmare scenarios so that you’ll know to take steps to counteract them before they arise.

You Hire a Moving Company That Doesn’t Have Insurance

If you hire a moving company to help you with your cross-country move, you always want to locate one that has insurance. That sounds obvious enough, but some people neglect to check on this crucial element of the process.

If you visit the website of any moving company, it should mention that they have insurance. Moving companies need insurance because if they break one of your fragile items or they lose something, their policy will replace it.

If you visit a moving company’s website, and you see that it doesn’t explicitly say that they have an insurance policy, then ask them about it when you call to set up the move. If they won’t give you a straight answer, then don’t use them. It’s absolutely crucial that they have an insurance policy in place, just in case there’s a mishap along the way.

You Pay the Moving Company Their Whole Fee Upfront

You should also never pay the moving company their entire fee upfront. Again, this seems fairly obvious, but if you’ve never moved before, then it might not occur to you that you should hold some of the company’s fee in reserve till they complete the job.

If you pay the moving company their whole fee upfront, then they have no reason to complete the job successfully and competently. Nothing says they will try to take advantage of you or the situation, but every once in a while, you will run into some unscrupulous individuals. That’s true in the moving industry, just like in any other profession.

If you hold back some of the moving company’s fee until they complete the job, that incentivizes them to do it well.

You Don’t Hire a Reputable Company

You might also run into trouble when doing a cross-country move if you hire a less-than-reputable moving company. Usually, when that happens, it’s because you’re in a hurry, and you didn’t take the time to thoroughly vet this company.

If you hire a moving company that’s new to the business, then maybe they won’t have the expertise for which you are looking. Perhaps they won’t secure the furniture or your other valuable items correctly in the back of the truck.

If they damage some of your items, then hopefully, their insurance will pay for it. However, having to go through the process of waiting to get money from an insurance claim takes time, and it’s a pain.

You don’t want to have to go through that. Also, if this company damaged an item that you can’t replace, then getting money for it might not completely satisfy you.

You Try to Drive the Truck Yourself

You should also probably try to avoid driving the moving truck yourself. If you drive it, that’s likely because you decided that you want to save money. You can certainly do that by not hiring a moving company for your cross-country journey, but it’s seldom worth it.

Companies like U-Haul will normally let you drive the truck yourself if you decide that you want to do so. However, just because they will let you, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. If you’ve never driven a vehicle that size, then you can very easily cause an accident along the way. That’s a nightmare scenario that you want to try to avoid at all costs.

Final Thoughts on How to Avoid a Cross-Country Move Going Wrong

Remember, no matter how well you prepare for your cross-country move things may go wrong on the day. Stay flexible and try to adapt as best you can. You may be able to predict some of the likely issues, so prepare a back up.

Hire a removals firm for your cross-country move that carries insurance for various eventualities. It will give you some back up should a difficult situation arise with the move. Negotiate a partial payment upfront to ensure they complete the job for the full and final payment. And look for a company that has a good reputation, if others found their service good then likely you will too. And try to avoid driving the truck yourself, this is a risky challenge across country.