The terms a household checks before booking a mover, stated as yours

What a household checks before it books

A household choosing a mover wants the terms before the date: what the price covers and what can change it, who pays if something breaks and up to how much, whether the company is licensed where the move happens, whether it belongs to a trade association, and what to do if something arrives damaged. Each of those is a term only your company can state, and the same words belong on your site and in your written quote.

Rules on quotes, liability and consumer protection for moves differ between the US, Canada, the EU and the UAE, and between the states, provinces and emirates within them. This page states none of them. It is about how a mover writes down its own terms; a household that wants to know whether those terms meet the rules where it lives asks the regulator there, and your counsel checks your wording.

The other facts a moving question turns on, from the route to storage, are in the overview for moving companies. Whether answers repeat your terms correctly can be checked every month: reading answers by route and move type adds a pricing column and a licenses column to each record.

A fixed price, and what can change it

Name your quote type the way your terms do, whether that is [fixed price], [binding quote] or [estimate], and say what it rests on: the inventory from an in-home or video survey, or the list the customer sent. Then say what the price includes and, in the same place, what can change it. A household that reads "fixed" without the second half has been told less than your terms say.

Liability cover: what is included, what is left out, what is sold

State the cover that comes with every move under your terms' own name for it, with its limit as your terms set it: "[name of the cover], up to [amount] per [item, unit of weight or move], as set out in [clause]". A household can hold you to that sentence. "Fully insured" gives it nothing to check, and it may not describe the cover you give.

Then list what the cover excludes, in the order your terms do: [items packed by the customer], [jewelry, cash and documents], [items above a stated value unless declared], [damage from causes your terms name]. Exclusions are the part a household cannot work out for itself, and the part a claim turns on.

Name any extra cover you sell as what it is, and say who provides it: "[name of the extra cover], provided by [your company or the named insurer], at [price or rate], adding [what it adds]". If it is an insurance policy from another company, name that company and say whose claims process applies. Use the word your terms use for each kind of cover, and no other.

Licenses and registrations, in the issuer's words

List each license, registration and operating authority your company holds, and nothing it does not, exactly as the issuer writes it: the name, the number, the issuing body as it names itself, where it is valid, and the dates it runs from and to. Where the issuer keeps a public lookup, link your entry, or its search page if entries have no fixed address. Put the legal name the license is issued to beside your trading name, so the page and the issuer's record plainly describe one entity.

A license is valid where its issuer says it is, so the page names where each one applies. When one lapses, the page stops claiming it that day; when one is renewed, the new number and dates go up as soon as they are issued.

In the structured data, each one goes on your MovingCompany node, a LocalBusiness subtype, as hasCertification with a Certification: issuedBy for the issuer, certificationIdentification for the number, certificationStatus for active or inactive, validIn for the jurisdiction, validFrom and expires for the dates, and url for the lookup. schema.org's definition of Certification names licenses beside it as another form of credential, and its properties are the ones a license carries. The bare Credential type is something else, a certificate used to verify identity, and is never the value here. A JSON-LD template, every value a bracket:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "MovingCompany",
  "name": "[Trading name]",
  "legalName": "[Legal name]",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "telephone": "[one phone number]",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "[street]",
    "addressLocality": "[city]",
    "addressRegion": "[state or province]",
    "postalCode": "[code]",
    "addressCountry": "[country code]"
  },
  "hasCertification": [
    {
      "@type": "Certification",
      "name": "[License or registration, exactly as issued]",
      "issuedBy": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "[Issuing body, as it names itself]" },
      "certificationIdentification": "[number]",
      "certificationStatus": "https://schema.org/CertificationActive",
      "validIn": { "@type": "AdministrativeArea", "name": "[where it is valid]" },
      "validFrom": "[YYYY-MM-DD]",
      "expires": "[YYYY-MM-DD]",
      "url": "[the issuer's public lookup for this entry]"
    }
  ],
  "memberOf": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "[Association, as it names itself]",
    "url": "[the association's website]"
  }
}

Put it on the page that shows the licenses and change it the same day as the text. The markup repeats that page and claims nothing of its own: Google's general structured data guidelines ask that it stay current and describe only what a reader can see, and add that even correct markup does not guarantee a feature will show.

Association membership, stated as membership

Membership of a trade association is a fact about your company, not a license and not a promise about any move. Write it in a form the association would recognize, "Member of [association] since [year], membership number [n]", and link your entry in its member directory if it keeps one. In the markup it is memberOf, which schema.org defines as "an Organization (or ProgramMembership) to which this Person or Organization belongs", pointing to the association as an Organization with its name and url, as in the template above; the membership number stays in the text, beside the directory link.

If your trade association runs a fixed-price or quality scheme and you take part, say so in the association's own words, name the scheme as the association names it, and link the page where the association describes it. Do not restate the scheme's rules or what it offers a household; the association's page does that, and it can change. Never present membership or a scheme as a license, an approval or a guarantee.

How a claim is handled, step by step

The claims page answers the question a household asks after the move, and it is better written before anyone asks it. Set it out as your own process, in order, with every period a bracket for your terms:

1. How to report damage or loss: to whom, by what channel ([email, form or phone]), and within [n] days of delivery, as your terms set it.
2. What to send: photos of the item and its packaging, the inventory number, and [a receipt or value, where your cover asks for one].
3. When you acknowledge the claim: within [n] working days, with a reference number and one named contact.
4. How it is assessed: an inspection, a repair quote or an appraisal, and who carries it out.
5. How it is settled: repair, replacement or payment, under which cover, within [n] days of agreement.
6. What happens if the household disagrees: your own review first, then [the body a customer can take it to, where one exists].

Where extra cover from another company applies, say where its claims go and whose process governs them. Write the claims page in the words your written terms use, so that nothing on it reads as a second, different promise.