By insurance, I mean do you pay the extra cost for the shipping insurance, vs. just standard shipping. It often costs about $15 more for the shipping insurance.

I typically do not if I paid with a CC- if there's any issues they'll go to bat for me. If I paid via ACH, I usually get the insurance.

Insurance is typically based on value assessment that you tell them. In many years of buying firearms at auctions I have had a total of 3 instances of being really glad I paid for the insurance. I had a fairly rare antique Winchester lever gun that got lost and was never found.
So it really paid off. Another was greatly damaged.
So, for me it depends on the gun, but 90% of the time I get it.

Depends on the gun for me as well. If insurance is only $15 you probably don't need it.

Insurance cost for Fed Ex ground is 1.00 per $100.00 value. So the $15.00 is covering you for a value of about $1500.
UPS insurance is a little higher. They last quoted me 1.30 per $100 value. So if you're using UPS your $15.00 is getting you about $1100-$1200 value insurance.
Don't know how much your firearm your buying is worth but you can use above to estimate your insurance cost.
Looks like the $15.00 will get you covered for $1100 -$1500 of firearm value, depending on who you use.

Like all insurance it's good to have it when you need it.

Currently have a gun running late from Gunbroker to Burdett in College Station and didn't buy it. God bless the USPS. The day after it was supposed to be delivered they finally update tracking to say it was going to be late. That was the update where they finally showed it in Texas.

Gunny456 said:

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Insurance cost for Fed Ex ground is 1.00 per $100.00 value. So the $15.00 is covering you for a value of about $1500.
UPS insurance is a little higher. They last quoted me 1.30 per $100 value. So if you're using UPS your $15.00 is getting you about $1100-$1200 value insurance.
Don't know how much your firearm your buying is worth but you can use above to estimate your insurance cost.
Looks like the $15.00 will get you covered for $1100 -$1500 of firearm value, depending on who you use.

Like all insurance it's good to have it when you need it.

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Seems like cheap insurance for the investment.

I decided a long time ago to never buy insurance being upsold on anything. IMO there are two ways to deal with upsold insurance, allways buy it and you will be sure you have it if you ever need it or never buy it and plan on a lifetime of savings being greater than the possible cost of "self insuring" the one or two times you might have needed it.

If you sometimes buy it, the time you don't will probably be the time you need it.

I don't buy guns online that any enthusiast would consider expensive i.e. usually <$1000. I have never paid for insurance because the consequences of losing a firearm in shipment are so much of a hassle for the shipping company that they would suffer a greater financial loss that I would.

Losing firearms gets expensive really fast just for the shipping company that might face fines or investigations. I would imagine that UPS probably reports less that 10 firearms lost in transit a year to the BATF but that's just a guess.

I suppose that a poorly packed firearm could be damaged in shipment but that seems unlikely for factory packaging.

Depends on the manufacture date of the firearm. If is pre 1899 manufacture, ATF has no regulation. As I stated above I had a fairly valuable Winchester that I bought and it never showed up and was never supposedly found. I was really glad I paid for the shipping insurance above the standard amount.
Had another one greatly damaged and had to go through a mess of work but did get compensation because I added insurance.
Just depends on what a person feels he can lose I guess.

So now I am 1/1 not buying the insurance. Thanks for the advice.