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🎉 ShipEngine is becoming ShipStation API 🎉

Over the next few months you'll notice the ShipEngine website, documentation portal, and dashboard being rebranded as ShipStation API. For our ShipEngine customers, you don't need to take any action or change any of your integrations in any way. All endpoints will remain the same and continue to function as they always have.

To learn more about what's coming, review our New ShipStation API page.

Parcel Insurance

Adding insurance to your shipments ensures you are financially protected against loss or damage that could occur while the shipment is in transit. While some carriers provide default loss/damage coverage, if you need to cover a shipment valued more than the default amount or your carrier provides no default coverage at all, ShipStation API allows you to do so.

There are two types of insurance you can apply to a shipment in ShipStation API:

  • ParcelGuard: ParcelGuard is ShipStation’s official parcel insurance partner. The discounted insurance rates are available to US-based accounts once you have enabled ShipStation Carriers. You can add ParcelGuard to insure shipments for any carrier.
    For non-US-based accounts, we plan to add a third-party insurance partner in the future.
  • Carrier: Carrier insurance is insurance available via the carrier selected for the shipment. Select this option if you want to add the carrier-provided insurance to the shipment. Any claim you file for the shipment would be done through your carrier's claims process.
    Please note that not all carriers support adding carrier insurance. If you are unsure if your carrier supports carrier insurance, check the carrier guide or contact the carrier directly.

You can add insurance to a shipment when getting a rate, creating a shipment, or purchasing a label. You’ll set the insurance_provider property at the shipment level and the insured_value property at the package level (for multipackage shipments, you’ll need to do this for every package in the shipment).

Go to our Add Insurance to Shipments guide for details.

Enable ParcelGuard Insurance

If you have a US-based ShipStation API account and wish to use our discounted parcel insurance provider, ParcelGuard, you’ll need to enable ShipStation Carriers in your account if you haven’t already.

  1. Log in to your ShipStation API account and make sure you are in the Production environment.
  2. Go to either the Carriers or Insurance page.
  3. Click the Enable ShipStation API Carriers button.
  4. Confirm you have read and agreed to the terms and conditions and click the Enable services button.