USPS Insurance?

[Ajeh]

At this time, Insurance is not a customer option but a store owner option ... this is set in the USPS shipping module itself ...

[brillarmory]

At this time, Insurance is not a customer option but a store owner option ... this is set in the USPS shipping module itself ...

That seems like a major flaw to me. I don't want to force insurance on all of my customers. I would like to give them a choice to purchase insurance.

[Ajeh]

You might look at the add on for Optional Insurance and see if you can adapt that to your needs ...
http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=232

[mc12345678]

That seems like a major flaw to me. I don't want to force insurance on all of my customers. I would like to give them a choice to purchase insurance.

I'd call it unimplemented functionality. Before one of these recent versions, there wasn't even the possibility to have it at all. Been a while since I've personally looked at USPS rate schedules, but I wouldn't wonder if there is a bit of complexity involved to overcome. How many boxes are being shipped, which item(s) are to be considered insured? The entire shipment or just part of it? How would the option(s) be displayed? One line for each with and without insurance? What about the other available options that are store set versus customer set and their being set by the customer? Etc...

[brillarmory]

How disappointing. You would think that something as important as insurance would be a feature in the official USPS module. I will try the optional insurance module, but based on what I've read it looks complicated.

[mc12345678]

How disappointing. You would think that something as important as insurance would be a feature in the official USPS module. I will try the optional insurance module, but based on what I've read it looks complicated.

But it is a feature, just store owner instead of customer configured. Always on or always off.

There is the possibility and it would be a pain, that you ask customers to leave a note to exclude insurance and then you figure out what that associated cost is and refund it. Doesn't look good, would be burdensome, and could always make a mistake in doing it, but you could also tout that you are providing a service to ensure that the product(s) arrive in quality shape, or some other statement. There might also be some configurable options in the file through coding, but yes there are some complicated aspects to the whole thing. At least it's available in some regards.

[brillarmory]

Is there any way to petition USPS or ask them to make insurance a fully functional feature?

[mc12345678]

Is there any way to petition USPS or ask them to make insurance a fully functional feature?

Ah ha, so now the perspective is understood. If such a petition were sent to the USPS, a conversation internal to the company similar to the following might occur:
Rep1:"But we offer all of these options as available to be used by programmers, why is someone asking us to do what we have already provided?"
Rep2:"You know I was looking at a couple of different groups that have or have not implemented this and well this one site, they seem to work off of each other and build these programs to do a lot. Seems that they have an entire ecommerce store that is built entirely from code that has been contributed by other authors."
Rep1:"Yeah, so what you're saying is that everything that is used to operate that ecommerce store is written by contributors?"
Rep2:"It sure is. As we have added capabilities, someone has to figure out a way to tap into that functionality and to do so with consideration of the largest audience. Sure the USPS module well predominantly serves just the US, but some of the same can be said about other postal methods. So what's the issue?"
Rep1:"It seems that no one has devoted all of the necessary resources to add the functionality so that a customer can choose certain items that we offer, but instead the functionality has been incorporated so that the store owner can choose to factor it in or not essentially for all items."

That's just my thought of a potential conversation related to this. The "official usps plugin" is considered official by the authors and significant contributors to ZC, not the USPS. The USPS does not control the code that is provided here, but instead provides resources to be able to access their information and the code that is written to do that is by public individuals willing and able to provide such a product.