Freight Claims for Lost or Damaged Cargo: How to Build a Claim File the Carrier Cannot Decline
A pallet arrives with two cartons crushed, the driver signs off, and three months later the claim comes back declined. The damage was real. What failed was the file: a receipt with no exception on it, a value nobody could tie to an invoice, a count that did not match the bill of lading. This post explains what a freight claim has to contain, why carriers decline the ones they do, and how to assemble the documents so the claim holds.
In brief
- Under the Carmack Amendment a carrier can require a written claim within no less than nine months of delivery, and US regulations give it 30 days to acknowledge the claim and 120 days to pay, decline or offer a settlement.
- A claim is a claim only when it identifies the shipment, asserts the carrier is liable and demands a specified or determinable amount: a phone call or an exception note on its own is not one.
- Most declined claims fail on proof, not on facts: a clean delivery receipt, a value with no invoice behind it, or quantities that do not tie to the bill of lading.
- A claim file is a set of documents that must agree on references, counts and amounts, which makes it an extraction and matching problem before it is a negotiation.
What a freight claim is, legally and practically
For interstate freight moved by motor carrier in the United States, liability for loss and damage is set by the Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C. 14706. The carrier that issues the bill of lading is liable for the actual loss or injury to the property, subject to the limits the shipper agreed to in the contract or tariff, and to a short list of defenses such as an act of the shipper, which is where packaging disputes live. The statute also lets the carrier set a deadline for filing a claim, but not shorter than nine months from delivery.
The handling of that claim is set by the regulations in 49 CFR Part 370. A claim must be in writing, it must contain facts sufficient to identify the shipment, it must assert that the carrier is liable, and it must demand a specified or determinable amount of money. A phone call to the terminal, an email asking the carrier to look into it, or an exception note on the delivery receipt is not a claim on its own. Once a valid claim is received, the carrier must acknowledge it within 30 days and pay, decline or make a settlement offer within 120 days, reporting the status every 60 days after that if it is still open.
9
months from delivery: the shortest filing deadline a carrier may set (49 U.S.C. 14706)
30
days for the carrier to acknowledge a claim (49 CFR 370.5)
120
days to pay, decline or offer a settlement (49 CFR 370.9)
Those rules make the claim a document problem. The carrier decides on what is in the file, and the file is built from paperwork that arrives at different times, from different parties, in different formats.
The documents that prove a claim
The bill of lading
The bill of lading is the contract of carriage and the record of what was tendered: the shipper, the consignee, the piece count, the weight, the description and often a declared value or a released rate. It proves the carrier received the goods, and how many.
The delivery receipt
The signed delivery receipt or proof of delivery is the most important document in the file, because it shows the condition in which the goods arrived. An exception written on it, such as two cartons crushed or one pallet short, is the strongest evidence that the loss happened in transit. A receipt signed clean shifts the burden onto the claimant. The post on proof of delivery processing covers how to read those notes as data instead of leaving them on an image.
The proof of value
The amount claimed must come from a document: the vendor or commercial invoice for the goods, at the value the claimant actually paid or would have been paid. A list price, an estimate or a round number invites a counteroffer. For imported goods the commercial invoice and packing list usually carry the unit values and the carton breakdown needed to price a partial loss.
The supporting evidence
The freight bill, photos of the damage and the packaging, an inspection report when one was requested, a repair estimate when the goods can be repaired, and a salvage record when they can be sold for less. Each one should carry the PRO or bill of lading number, so the carrier can match it to the shipment without asking.
Why carriers decline claims
A declined claim is rarely a dispute about what happened. It is usually a gap in what was proven. The same handful of reasons account for most declines, and nearly all of them are visible in the file before it is sent.
Clean delivery receipt
No proof of value
Counts do not tie to BOL
Filed after deadline
Packaging blamed
Amount not stated
Clean receipt, concealed damage
When the receiver signs without an exception and finds the damage later, the claim becomes a concealed damage claim. It can still succeed, but the claimant must show the damage happened before delivery. Many carrier tariffs ask for notice within a few days of delivery and an opportunity to inspect, so the original packaging must be kept and the discovery dated and photographed the day it happens.
A value with nothing behind it
A claim that states an amount without an invoice, or with an invoice for the whole order when only part of it was damaged, gets a reduced offer or a request for more information, which stops the 120-day clock in practice. Price the damaged units from the invoice lines, deduct any salvage, and show the arithmetic.
Counts that do not tie
If the bill of lading says 12 pieces and the claim says 14 were shipped, or the damaged quantity on the claim exceeds what the receipt noted, the carrier has a reason to doubt the whole file. References and quantities must agree across every document before the claim goes out.
Pay the freight bill, file the claim
Build one claim file, end to end
1. Open the claim the day of delivery
An exception on the delivery receipt should open a claim record immediately, not when someone in finance notices a short shipment weeks later. The deadline counts from delivery, and the evidence is freshest then.
2. Extract and match the documents
Pull the PRO number, the bill of lading number, the dates, the piece counts and the exceptions from the receipt, and the line items from the invoice that proves value. Documents often arrive bundled in one PDF, so splitting and classifying the batch comes first. Define the fields once, with types and required flags, as covered in designing extraction schemas.
3. Run the checks and state the amount
Before anything is sent, confirm the references match, the exception is on the receipt, the damaged quantity is within the shipped count, the value comes from an invoice line, the amount is specified, and the claim is inside the carrier's deadline.
{ "shipment": { "pro_number": "PRO-EXAMPLE-558201", "bol_number": "BOL-EXAMPLE-77310", "ship_date": "2026-09-28", "delivery_date": "2026-10-01", "pieces_on_bol": 12, "weight_on_bol_lb": 4180 }, "delivery_receipt": { "pieces_received": 12, "signed": true, "exceptions": [ { "type": "damaged", "pieces": 2, "note": "2 cartons crushed, pallet 7" } ] }, "value_proof": { "document": "vendor_invoice", "invoice_number": "INV-EXAMPLE-30418", "line_items": [ { "sku": "SKU-EXAMPLE-114", "qty": 24, "unit_price": 38.50, "damaged_qty": 9 } ] }, "claim": { "claim_type": "damage", "goods_value": 346.50, "freight_on_damaged_share": 0.00, "salvage_credit": 0.00, "amount_claimed": 346.50, "filing_deadline": "2027-07-01", "attachments": ["bol", "delivery_receipt", "vendor_invoice", "freight_bill", "photos"] }, "checks": [ { "rule": "references_match_across_documents", "result": "pass" }, { "rule": "exception_noted_on_delivery_receipt", "result": "pass" }, { "rule": "damaged_pieces_within_bol_count", "result": "pass" }, { "rule": "value_from_invoice_not_estimate", "result": "pass" }, { "rule": "amount_is_specified", "result": "pass" }, { "rule": "filed_before_deadline", "result": "pass" } ]}In this example the delivery receipt records 12 pieces received and two cartons crushed on pallet 7. The vendor invoice prices the affected product at 38.50 a unit, and the inspection found 9 damaged units, so the claim demands 346.50, a specified amount backed by an invoice line. The filing deadline is computed from the delivery date and the nine-month minimum, and every check passes before the file goes to the carrier. If one failed, say the receipt had no exception, the claim would be marked as concealed damage and routed for photos and an inspection request rather than sent as it is.
Track claims like receivables
An open claim is money owed to you, with a due date set by regulation. Track each one by carrier, with its filing date, the acknowledgment date, the 120-day mark and the outcome: paid in full, compromised or declined, and why. A carrier that acknowledges late or declines the same type of claim repeatedly is a procurement conversation. A decline reason that keeps recurring on your side, such as clean receipts at one warehouse, is a receiving process to fix.
Claims also connect to the rest of freight finance. The same receipt that opens a claim should hold the invoice line it affects, as described in the freight invoice audit, and a claim paid by the carrier should be matched against the original shipment so the recovery is not booked twice. On the extraction side, measure field-level accuracy on your own receipts, with the attention on counts and handwritten notes: a missed exception is a missed claim.
Before you automate: a short checklist
- Record each carrier’s claim deadline and liability terms from its bill of lading or tariff.
- Read every delivery receipt for exceptions on the day it arrives, and open a claim for each one.
- Keep packaging and photograph damage the day it is found, with the shipment reference visible.
- Extract the PRO and bill of lading numbers, dates, counts and exceptions into fields.
- Price the claim from invoice lines, deduct salvage, and state one specified amount.
- Check that references and quantities agree across the bill of lading, the receipt and the invoice.
- Pay the freight bill in full and keep the claim on its own track.
- Track acknowledgment, the 120-day mark and the outcome by carrier and by decline reason.
Where extraction fits
A claim file is slow to build because every value in it sits on a different document, and someone has to retype the PRO number, the counts, the exception note and the invoice lines before any check can run. Parser extracts bills of lading, delivery receipts and invoices into structured JSON against the template you define, through upload, email or the API, so the fields a claim depends on land in your system ready to match, and your team spends its time on the claims that need judgment.