Cargo Claims Process 2026: From Notice to Settlement for Carriers

End-to-End Process Map

Day-one tactics live in how to handle freight claims.

Standard Claim Packet Checklist

What Investigators Look For

Chain of custody, whether damage existed at pickup, securement adequacy, temperature compliance, and whether exceptions were noted at delivery. Gaps become leverage against the carrier.

Settlement, Salvage & Denial

Prevention loops back to equipment fit and booking: wrong trailer for the commodity is a claim factory. See reefer ops for temp-control cost discipline tied to claim risk.

Carmack Sets the Floor, the Bill of Lading Sets the Clock

Interstate motor-carrier cargo loss, damage, and delay sit under the Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C. 14706. The delivering carrier, and the carrier that caused the loss, can be sued. The usual prima facie case is the one courts have used for decades: the shipper shows the goods were delivered to the carrier in good condition, they arrived damaged or short, and the shipper shows the amount of damages. The carrier then has the statutory and case-law defenses, including act of the shipper, inherent vice, and the burden that follows a clean pickup.

The deadline myth is the expensive one. Section 14706(e) does not say every claim must be filed within nine months. It says a carrier may not, by rule or contract, give you less than nine months to file a claim, and less than two years to sue after the carrier gives written notice that it disallowed any part of the claim. If the bill of lading says six months, that shorter period is not enforceable. If the bill of lading says nine months and you send a narrative email on month ten with no amount, you have a problem. Read the contract you actually signed. Broker-carrier agreements often reprint the nine-month claim language and a shorter notice-of-exception language. Notice of an exception on the POD and filing of a claim are not the same act.

The two-year lawsuit clock does not start at delivery. It starts when the carrier, in writing, disallows any part of the claim. An offer to compromise is not a disallowance unless the writing says that part of the claim is disallowed and gives reasons. A letter from the insurer is not a disallowance unless the insurer says it is acting for the carrier, says the part is disallowed, and gives reasons. Those two sentences are in 14706(e)(2). Carriers who "keep talking" can leave the lawsuit clock unstarted. Claimants who treat a friendly adjuster email as a denial can also miscount. Save the disallowance letter.

What 49 CFR Part 370 Requires of the Carrier

Build the packet the same week the freight delivers, not when the broker threatens offset. You want the bill of lading, the rate confirmation, the signed POD with any exception written on it, photos from pickup and from delivery, seal numbers if the trailer was sealed, temperature downloads if it was a reefer, the shipper's invoice or repair estimate, and a salvage bid if the goods still have value. Part 370 expects the carrier to investigate promptly. You make that investigation shorter by sending documents once, labeled with the pro number, instead of twelve emails titled "update."

A clear POD is powerful and it is not magic. If the consignee signed "subject to inspection" or noted shortage, keep that page. If the consignee signed clean and then found concealed damage, the claim can still be filed, and the carrier will ask why the damage was not visible at the door. Concealed-damage claims are won with photos, packaging condition, and timing, not with a demand letter that only states a dollar figure. Mitigate. Carmack claimants are expected not to let damaged freight rot in a yard while they argue. Get a salvage number in writing. Deducting salvage from the claim is normal. Throwing the freight away and then claiming full invoice value is how claims get cut.

Broker, Carrier, and the Offset Fight

Carmack liability runs against the motor carrier. A property broker is not automatically the carrier because it emailed the rate confirmation. Some brokers are also carriers, and some contracts say the broker will handle claims as the shipper's agent. Read the party line. If you are the carrier, do not ignore a claim just because it arrived from the broker. If your contract says the broker may offset unpaid freight against an unresolved claim, your cash-flow problem is contractual. It is still not a reason to skip the part 370 file. An offset without a disallowance letter and without documents is how small carriers lose both the claim argument and the next load.

Released value and cargo insurance are different ceilings. A bill of lading can limit carrier liability to a declared value when that limitation was a real choice, not a clause nobody could have seen. Household-goods moves have their own full-value rules and a written waiver before a released rate applies. A broker's demand that you carry $100,000 of cargo insurance does not change the valuation on a particular bill of lading, and a cargo policy deductible does not cap what you owe the claimant. You can owe the shipper more than the insurer pays you. That gap is why the claim file and the policy file should sit in the same folder.

The companion page for the carrier's side of the argument is how to handle freight claims. Insurance structure is on cargo insurance for trucking. Nothing on this page is a promise that a claim will be paid, and nothing here is a filing you send to FMCSA. Cargo claims are not authority filings and they are not SMS violations by themselves. They are money, documents, and clocks. Count the clocks from the contract and from 14706, not from a Facebook group.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related: handle freight claims, demurrage, chassis splits, bonding.

How Our Team Helps

At O Trucking LLC, we treat compliance, equipment fit, and dispatch contracts as load-winning fundamentals — not afterthoughts.