If you’ve shopped around for shipping labels to ship breastmilk, you’ve probably landed on Pirate Ship, Shippo or some similar program. Or maybe you’ve thought about walking into a UPS or FedEx store and shipping it yourself. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and there’s usually an “add insurance” option right at checkout. It feels like you’re covered.

You’re not.

Let’s walk you through what those insurance policies actually say, because I’ve seen too many moms find out the hard way. Then I’ll show you how Save The Milk shipping kits, shipping labels and return labels are set up differently.

Read the fine print on their insurance and you’ll find a list of risks that aren’t covered. Three of them describe pretty much every way a milk shipment goes wrong:

• Delay, even if something covered caused the delay
• Temperature variation
• “Inherent vice,” which is insurance language for things that naturally break down on their own (like milk that thaws)

So if your box sits an extra day in a hot truck and your milk arrives thawed, that’s a delay causing temperature variation on a product that spoils.

Shippo is even more direct about it. Their insurance partner lists perishable foods and temperature-sensitive items as goods it won’t cover at all. Breast milk is the definition of temperature sensitive.

That means you can pay for insurance on a label and still have zero coverage the moment the contents are perishable.

Going directly to the carrier doesn’t solve the problem either. UPS and FedEx won’t insure breast milk. Their declared value coverage is built for lost or damaged packages, not perishables that spoil because of a delay or a temperature change. If your milk arrives thawed, you’re out of luck.

So whether you go through a discount label site or straight to the carrier, you end up in the same place: paying to ship milk with no protection if it spoils.

This isn’t anyone doing anything shady. These companies are built for people shipping t-shirts and phone cases, and their insurance is built for that too. Standard shipping coverage is designed for packages that get lost, crushed or stolen. It was never designed for a cooler full of frozen milk racing the clock.

The problem is that nobody tells you this when you’re checking out. You see the word “insurance,” you pay for it, and you assume your milk is protected. Then a claim gets denied, and the milk is gone, and so is the money you spent shipping it. 

When you ship your milk with a Save The Milk shipping label, it comes with perishable coverage for your breastmilk. From $150 to $750 depending on what size kit you are using.

Here’s how it all fits together:

Our insulated cooler kits are built specifically for frozen milk. Every kit comes with ice sheets, and they’re part of what keeps your coverage valid.

One important note: please don’t swap in dry ice. I know it’s tempting, but using dry ice instead of the ice sheets we provide voids your perishable coverage. (If you want to know why I don’t recommend dry ice at all, I wrote a whole post on it: link to dry ice blog.)

Shop breastmilk shipping kits →

Once your kit is packed, you need a fast label to get it where it’s going. We offer discounted UPS and FedEx labels with perishable coverage included, so you’re not choosing between a good rate and real protection. 

Create your shipping label →

Shipping milk to your baby while you travel? Sending a kit to a donor or a surrogate? A return label lets the person on the other end send the empty cooler back to you so you can use it again.

Since there’s no milk inside on the way back, return labels don’t need perishable coverage. They include the standard $100 UPS or FedEx carrier coverage for the empty kit.

Get a return label →

You worked too hard for that milk to trust it to coverage that was never going to pay out. Grab a kit, pick your label, and add a return label if you’d like your cooler back. We’ve got you!

Shop Shipping Kits | Create a Shipping Label | Get a Return Label