Parcelforce does not offer any additional insurance on musical instruments and I only found that out by accident a couple of years ago when a Gibbo 335 I shipped to Spain went missing. It was eventually found sitting in a cage in an unused area of a warehouse. Check the 'Fragile' list of this link and remember the list:-
[url="http://www.parcelforce.com/help-information/compensation-refunds-and-claims/items-we-exclude-compensation"]Exclusions[/url]
IMO, those guys at UK Mail should be identified and sacked, if they haven't been already. What a shocking way to treat people's property, people who are, in effect, paying their wages! And I wasn't surprised to see evidence of petty theft taking place with regard to the bottles of fizz.
In the industry's defence, though I must say that I never saw anything like that going when I did some agency work for a large UK courier firm back in the '90s. I was often there in the evening when the bulk deliveries came up from Coventry and all the ops on the sorting conveyor treated the items with care. And the full-time couriers all seemed to be concientious.
I'll count myself lucky in that I've never had to claim on courier damage. Anyone got any real horror stories?