I see lots of sellers saying that shipping insurance is not avaliable. Now, why would that be? The buyer pays all shipping and insurance...Why no insurance offered? So far, in my purchases on Ebay I have been very fortunate and recieved almost everything I have purchased in good condition. However, on one occasion the shipper refused to provide insurance and sure as crap the pottery came packaged in newspaper and smashed. When I complained about the poor packaging and smashed pottery the seller claimed that I should have insisted on insurance and she would have provided it. My loss, not hers. In looking at the sales photos again, I'm not totally convinced the pottery wasn't broken to begin with. Dark pictures and slightly out of focus. You know what I mean. Since that time I have insisted that all merchandise shipped to me come with insurance. I don't care if its cloth, I still want it insured. At least that way you can track the item, if nothing else.

Update on the insurance...I have had two strange occurances regarding insurance recently. On one seller I paid for the insurance and the seller shipped it to me in newspaper and of course it arrived smashed. The seller wanted me to try to collect from the PO rather than refund my money and collect the money herself. I sent the mdse back to the seller and had to file a dispute to collect. The second seller did exactly the same thing and even tho I purchased insurance refused to refund and even tho it was packaged in newpaper she said that the PO told her there was no way it could have gotten smashed in transit. Anyway, that one is in dispute too, but I doubt that paypal will ever collect that money. So, insurance is no protection from a crooked dealer.