Long Distance Moving Help

Long Distance Moving Help 

Things to consider when you are moving long distance – or out of state are much different than trying to find a local mover.

First, if you are moving locally and there is an “issue,” taking your  mover to court is pretty easy.  What happens if there are issues for long distance moves?  Well, the law states that you must take the company to court in the state that the move started in.  Yeah, its a horrid law.  Essentially, you are at the mercy of your interstate mover when they have all of your possessions in their truck.  Unless you feel like flying back to your old state for court dates.  And that’s just insane.

I don’t mean to scare you but I want people moving out of state to realize that choosing a long distance mover is an important decision.

Of course I could offer all kinds of tips and advice for hiring movers for your out of state move but I will go over the three most important items to help with your research:

1.  Choose movers that have door to door service and don’t take your things off of a truck – called truck swapping.  Large van lines claim they can handle offloading shipments, sticking them in a warehouse, putting them with another shipment, offloading and repeat.  The more your items get shifted around, the better the chance of broken or missing items.  The least amount of times a shipment is transferred, the better.

2.  Make sure your movers are experienced.   There are only a handful of movers between a huge van line and a “craigslist mover.”  These are the moving companies that are large enough to offer great rates and have all licensing required by the DOT and keep your things on the truck without offloading.

3.  Try not to wait until the last minute.  Many movers will see this as an opportunity to charge the highest amount possible while they think you may not find any reasonable movers at the last minute.  If you do need last minute or emergency movers for an out of state move, call Monster Movers.  The rates are always flat rate moves for long distance shipments and do not change based on any dates.

Some other useful tools for your long distance move:

Long Distance Moving Checklist

Compare Movers Worksheet