insurance and shipping with UPS

If it is not considered too off topic, I have a question that may be best addressed by the retired postmaster kqvkq9 although I certainly welcome comments by anyone who cares to chime in. I have a small brick and mortar sports collectible business that I have owned and operated in the same location for 28 years. Naturally, I have insurance for my business and I pay a premium for that insurance. I must repeat, I pay for the insurance for my business. I use the USPS on a daily basis shipping mostly small, First Class packages and a few Priority Mail packages that can weigh up to 20 pounds . These type packages are very easy to package safely. The values on these packages range from $10.00 to $4,000.00. My question is this...If I pay the USPS their fee, which is based on weight and distance, to deliver a package, which is their job, why must I pay them extra to "Insure" that they do the job that I just paid them to do?! This of course holds true also for UPS, FedEx etc..

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.