Freight Claims: What to Do When Something Arrives Wrong
A practical walkthrough of the freight claims process — inspecting before signing, noting exceptions, documenting damage and notifying the carrier promptly.
Most freight claims are won or lost in the first ten minutes at the receiving dock — long before anyone fills out a form. Inspect before signing, write what you see on the delivery receipt, photograph everything, and tell the carrier promptly in writing. Do those four things and a legitimate claim usually resolves without drama. Skip them and even a valid claim becomes an argument.
This is a practical walkthrough of the process as it works in Ontario B2B freight. It’s general industry practice, not legal advice — carrier terms and provincial conditions of carriage govern the details, and it’s worth verifying current requirements with the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario or your own advisors.
First, know what a freight claim is
A freight claim is a formal request to a carrier for compensation when freight is lost, short or damaged in transit. It isn’t an accusation or a lawsuit — it’s a documented business process with a standard shape: establish that the freight was tendered in good condition, show it arrived damaged or didn’t arrive, document the loss, and file within the applicable time limits. Our answer page on what a freight claim is covers the definitions; this article covers what to actually do.
Step 1: Inspect before anyone signs
The receiver’s inspection at delivery is the foundation of everything that follows. Before signing:
- Count the pieces against the delivery receipt. Skids, cartons, bundles — whatever unit the carrier signed for at pickup.
- Walk around the freight. Look for crushed corners, torn wrap, punctures, leaning loads, forklift marks.
- Look at the packaging, not just the product. Damaged packaging with an intact product still belongs in a notation — it’s evidence of a handling event.
This doesn’t require unpacking anything at the dock. It requires two minutes of looking before the pen moves.
Step 2: Note the exception on the delivery receipt
If anything is wrong, write it on the proof of delivery before signing — specifically and factually. “1 of 6 cartons crushed, top of skid.” “Skid 2 wrap torn, visible dent in housing.” “3 skids received of 4 on BOL.”
A written exception at delivery is the strongest single piece of evidence a claim can have, because it’s recorded at the moment of transfer, witnessed by both parties. Vague notations help less: “damaged” without a count or location invites argument. And a clean signature followed by a damage report the next week starts the claim from a hole.
Step 3: Preserve the evidence
After noting and signing, protect what you have:
- Photograph everything before moving it — the freight as it sits, the damaged pieces, the packaging, the labels, and any tell-tale marks on wrap or cartons.
- Keep the packaging. Discarding the carton and wrap discards the evidence of how the damage happened. Keep it until the claim is settled.
- Set the damaged goods aside, unaltered. Don’t repair, use or dispose of anything before the carrier has had the chance to inspect or waive inspection.
Step 4: Notify the carrier promptly, in writing
Call if you like, but follow up in writing the same day — email is fine. State the shipment reference, delivery date, what was found, and that a claim will follow. Prompt written notice does two things: it starts the record, and it protects you against time limits. Notice periods for visible damage, and especially for concealed damage, are shorter than many shippers expect, and they’re set by the carrier’s conditions of carriage and applicable regulation — don’t sit on a problem while the window closes.
Step 5: File the claim with a complete package
A claim that arrives complete gets processed; a claim that dribbles in gets shelved. Include:
- A written claim stating what happened and the amount claimed
- Copies of the bill of lading and the noted delivery receipt or POD
- Photographs from Step 3
- The commercial invoice or other proof of the goods’ value
- A repair estimate, if repair rather than replacement is the remedy
Claim the actual loss — the documented value of what was damaged or lost, not a rounded-up figure. Inflated claims stall; documented ones settle.
Understand liability before you need it
A claim pays out under the carrier’s liability terms, and those terms are worth understanding before the first shipment, not after the first loss. Two general points apply across the industry. First, carrier liability is not unlimited: conditions of carriage typically cap what a carrier owes, often by weight or declared value, and the cap can be well below the commercial value of high-value freight. Second, declared value and cargo insurance are different instruments — declaring a value on the shipping documents affects the carrier’s liability, while insuring the cargo is a separate decision between you and an insurer.
None of this is a reason to fear shipping valuable freight; it’s a reason to have a two-minute conversation when you set up with a carrier: how does liability work, what should be declared, and does this freight warrant separate coverage. Shippers who settle that up front turn claims into arithmetic. Shippers who don’t discover the cap at the worst possible moment.
The harder case: concealed damage
Concealed damage is damage discovered after delivery, once the packaging comes off — and it’s the hardest claim to win because the clean POD says everything looked fine. Improve your odds by unpacking promptly after every delivery, reporting concealed damage as soon as it’s found, keeping all packaging, and photographing the freight partially unpacked so the relationship between the damage and the packaging is visible. The reporting window for concealed damage is typically much shorter than for noted damage, so speed matters more here than anywhere else in the process.
Making claims rare in the first place
The best claims process is the one you rarely use, and prevention is mostly physical: sound pallets, loads secured to the deck, and stretch wrap applied so the load and pallet move as one unit. The other half is choosing how freight moves. Every terminal transfer and cross-dock is a handling event, and handling events are where damage happens — which is why fragile or high-value freight tends to travel better on a direct run, where the truck that loads at your dock is the truck that arrives at the destination.
At Sonic Transport, a signed POD closes out every shipment, so when a receiver notes an exception, the record exists from minute one — and you’re dealing with a person who knows your account, not a claims queue. If you’d rather ship with a carrier that documents every run properly, tell us about your freight and we’ll take it from there.
Frequently asked questions
Should we refuse a damaged shipment outright?
Usually not. In most cases the better move is to accept the freight, note the damage specifically on the delivery receipt, photograph everything and start the claim — refusing sends the freight back into transit and complicates the situation. Outright refusal generally makes sense only when the freight is clearly destroyed or unsafe to accept.
Does a clean POD mean we can't claim for damage found later?
It makes the claim harder, not automatically impossible. Concealed damage — found after unpacking — can still be claimed, but you'll need to report it quickly, keep the packaging, and show the damage plausibly happened in transit. The window for reporting concealed damage is typically short, which is why unpacking promptly matters.
What if the shortage is cartons inside a shrink-wrapped skid?
It depends on what the carrier signed for. If the driver signed for one skid, shrink wrap intact, and cartons are missing inside, the question becomes whether the wrap was disturbed in transit. Photograph the wrap before cutting it and count contents immediately — intact wrap with a short count usually points back to the packing process.