insurance and shipping with UPS

FWIW, I have had equally bad experiences with both UPS and FedEx. It seems to me that there is a direct relationship between the weight of the item and the likelihood of damage being incurred.
FedEx roughed-up a Rogue Cronus Mag II that I purchased from a fellow in Las Vegas. I warned him - actually pleaded with him to double box it. He said he would do his best. No double box =d damaged amp. He made good for the refurb done by Rogue Audio (great folks), but I drove it to Rogue (I live in Pa about 90 minutes from them) and picked it up when finished. I didn't want the headache of trying to wrangle culpability out of FedEx as it came nearly across the entire U.S. and had been at multiple FedEx terminals. At which point was the damage sustained?
I actually went to the FedEx terminal to pick the amp up as they had missed two proposed delivery dates (that I took off from work for) due to weather which wasn't so bad that I couldn't drive there. When the terminal employee (a lady) opened the truck that it was loaded in for delivery, the first clue that things were likely not going to go well was that the boxed amp - in it's original factory container - was standing on edge despite being clearly marked with large arrows and verbiage to do otherwise. The large puncture through the outer (and only) carton was the next reason my heart sank. I even opened the box up and eyeballed the amp. There was no apparent damage. It appeared that whatever they 'speared' it with, wasn't long enough to actually reach the amp which was suspended on heavy, dense foam carriers. Upon powering it up when I got home, it was obvious there were internal issues.
On another occasion, UPS Ground Freight delivered a heavy (200 + lbs.) pellet grill to me that looked as though it had been dropped out of low-flying aircraft.
I could go on, but you get the point.

catsally1,
was your resolution verbally stated with UPS or was there something in writing?  Documenting your case with either police report, letter or email is always a good idea.  Hope you receive your check sooner than later. Cheers!

ebeneezerfeeblegeezer  has it right in his assessment. I quit using UPS years ago when I watched a driver getting off his truck in front of my house drop a tube amp on the step of that truck. He looks up and sees me in the window and says nothing about it when I open the door. The sound of broken glass (tubes) within the box made my decision to refuse delivery due to damage. Hate them.

Unfortunately I have also learned the hard way that UPS, when it comes to claims for damages are not to be trusted in any way whatsoever and will actually tamper with evidence and alter the facts to avoid paying out in any way they can.
Heady claims you say, I agree but it happened to me too.
I shipped a pair of speakers from Florida to Arizona in the original speaker boxes but then also inside a pair of heavy duty bought from the UPS store golf club boxes ( these are great cheap options for shipping speakers if you do not have boxes btw!).
Now I plastered these boxes with signs I printed out and taped on along the lines of , FRAGILE, DO NOT BEND, ELECTRONICS, THIS WAY UP etc.
Now my local UPS driver is a very nice guy and when he came to pick these up from my house I asked if I could take a picture of them loaded in his truck standing up with all the packaging labels showing which he had no problem with at all.
Needless to say they arrived at the buyers looking like they had been run over by an 18 wheeler and both speakers completely wasted.Buyer sent me lots of photos and what was very interesting was that ALL of my labels were gone from both boxes, every single one.
dealing with ups claims the lady tried to insist they were not in speaker boxes despite the original speaker boxes and packaging were INSIDE the ups golf club boxes and there was NO indication of goods or fragility, seriously. I demanded to speak to a supervisor who I eventually got after 30 minutes wait and we went through it all again, at this juncture I asked for her email so I could send her the pictures of these speakers loaded onto the ups truck at my house. She asked why and as soon as I said that they showed the boxes covered with warning labels and that after destroying the boxes in transit a ups employee must have removed all labels and tried to cover their backsides she agreed to receive the pictures.
To her credit she called me back in 10 minutes, apologised and said ups will cover the full cost of the speakers insured value and refund the shipping charges.
Trust them no further than you can throw them! Get all the evidence you can, I take pictures of all my major items shipping and have done for years.