The Department of Defense wants to tighten rules governing the transport and storage of household goods after a General Accounting Office study noted inefficiencies in the commercial moving sector.

“DOD spends more than $1.7 billion each year to move and store over 600,000 household goods shipments when relocating military personnel,” GAO said. “The recommendations in DOD's report to Congress have the potential to resolve several long-standing problems found in the current program.”

The recommendations, if implemented, would:

• Use performance-based service contracts to improve “the generally low quality of service that DOD currently gets from the moving industry,” the report said.
• Put in place new information technology with interface capabilities to enable program managers and users to monitor in-transit shipments and track the number and cost of shipments processed each year.
• Re-engineer the claims process to reduce the length of time it currently takes to resolve claims for lost, destroyed or damaged household goods and increase the reimbursement rates that military personnel currently receive for their losses.