If you have a very valuable package to mail you can either insure it or send it registered mail. If you send it registered it gets special treatment plus you can declare a value up to $25,000. It is insured for that value. So if I ship a $5000 package and do it registered it costs about $23 extra. If I ship the same box insured it costs $50 extra for just the insurance. Other than the fact that it is run by the government (and we all know how stooopid they are!) can anyone give me an idea of why the huge difference in rates? You would think that the registered package would cost a lot more instead of 50% less. I even called their customer service number and all they could say was "that is becasue that is what the rates are"!