Sending Crest transfer forms and shares certificates. Registered delivery? Recorded delivery? Etc...

BruceThunder

A quick Google suggests there could be hair-raising charges for replacing lost shares certificates. Any advice, wisdom, suggestions for sending them securely?

JGB1955

I think I sent mine Royal Mail signed for Second Class.  It only compensation up to £100 though.  Even Royal Mail Special Delivery only provides a maximum £500 compensation so, in my case where I was sending at least 5 lots of shares and forms in one envelope, I would still have been something like £1,000+ short of the cost of replacement.

Ironically, when the Registrars send out share certificates, they just rely upon ordinary untracked post.  Guess it's easy enough for them to provide replacements!

MDMD

With Special Delivery you can pay for compensation up to £2,500

https://www.royalmail.com/sending/uk/special-delivery-guaranteed-1pm

Personally I would always pay the £10 or so it costs so that I have more peace of mind.

Apodemus

MDMD, Thanks for posting the link to the Royal Mail site. 

I had a lol moment when I read, in the conditions, that "guaranteed by 1pm" actually means by 4pm... or 5.30pm for certain postcodes.  I'm not in one of the listed postcodes but standard practice seems to be that these are simply added to the next available postal delivery - they may arrive at the local sorting office "next day" but it is the day after that before they go out for doorstep delivery.  The same happens with 48 hour delivery, so what we experience is "next day" = "48 hours" and "48 hours" =  72 hours (which roughly = standard first or second class mail).  Our local PO staff are even open enough to warn about this when using the system to send mail!

BruceThunder

Thanks, people. I paid something like £6.56 to send 3 certificates in one envelope, with possible compensation of £500. It made me feel better. Near enough the price of a pint and a bag of (pub price) good crisps.