What items won’t a delivery service accept?

Individual delivery service companies may have a wide range of policies relating to items that they are unwilling or unable to carry. In some cases, those policies may arise from their own health and safety practices. In other situations it may be a question of what their insurance will allow them to carry or, perhaps in less common circumstances, the requirements of the law.

Although this list isn’t conclusive or necessarily applicable to all couriers, it may give some idea of the circumstances where you will need to make special arrangements to get your items delivered through a transport or delivery service:

• Hazardous items. The definition of what is or is not hazardous may vary from one company to another and from one insurer to another. Broadly speaking, it will typically include items that are considered to be highly inflammable, corrosive, explosive or sufficiently volatile that they may become so if agitated or involved in an accident.
• Biological. This may include anything that is defined as being animal and alive or potentially biologically hazardous. Examples of that latter category might include medical samples and so on.
• Radioactive. Of course, many ordinary substances may have a harness degree of natural background radiation emanating from them, but material specifically defined as being anywhere from low to high intensity radiation emitters may require very special arrangements and might not be considered suitable for the typical delivery service.
• Precious metals, cash, jewellery and electronic items such as gadgets and PCs etc. Some or all of these may be considered to be highly vulnerable to theft and if they are carried, the delivery service may insist that it is at your risk not theirs.
• Glass and other highly fragile items. This is usually due to the possibility of them being broken in transit even if comparatively well packed by you prior to dispatch.
• Pornography or other materials defined as being either offensive or illegal.
• Objects that are above the specified weight limit for the transport method you are using.

It might typically be possible to ship any of these things by simply deliberately falsely declaring them to the courier concerned, and sadly that isn’t entirely unknown. However, that could be a serious mistake because apart from possibly being illegal in some cases, it also means that any carriage insurance you have taken out could become totally invalid.

If you do have specialised transport requirements, some couriers may be able to offer specific bespoke carriage or they will be able to put you in touch with a specialised transport company that will be able to help.

The bottom line with a delivery service is to honestly and accurately declare the items you are shipping and not to take chances.

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world's largest neutral trading hub for same day delivery service in the express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe 'wholesale' environment.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.