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Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Shipping & Courier

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At a glance

Live count of carrier-side claims (UPS, USPS, OnTrac, Lasership, Amazon Logistics) that the seller has filed and the carrier has not resolved. Different from Amazon’s A-to-Z claim system: those are customer-vs-seller disputes Amazon adjudicates; these are seller-vs-carrier service-failure claims for late, lost, or damaged Prime-promised consignments.

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Amazon Prime Shipping (SFP) data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

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Worked example

A US small-electronics merchant on SFP. Multi-carrier mix (UPS Ground 2-Day, OnTrac West, Amazon Logistics where available). Reading taken at 14:00 ET on 22 Mar 26. The card reads 44 with 12 sitting >7 days, tripping the alert. Five things to notice:
  1. The 7-day threshold has 12 hits, all UPS damage and USPS lost. Service-failure claims (smaller, faster) clear quickly; damage and lost claims stretch. The 4 USPS-lost claims at 18-day age are at the SLA boundary; chase via USPS claim portal.
  2. $2,600 of working capital parked. For a mid-size SFP merchant, this is meaningful. Carrier-claim recovery is a working-capital lever many merchants underutilise.
  3. Amazon Concession costs are NOT in this card. When a Prime customer is impacted by a missed delivery, Amazon often credits them with a goodwill concession (Prime credit, refund-on-shipping); the carrier-side claim refunds the seller’s carriage cost but does not offset the Concession Amazon billed. Both costs are real.
  4. UPS damage claims dominate at $1,640. Small-electronics shipping has structural damage exposure (drop, crush). Pair with ama_exception_rate to see if damage exceptions are rising; if yes, packaging review is overdue.
  5. Filing rate vs eligible-rate matters. If the merchant had 60 service-failure-eligible misses this period and only 32 are filed (24 UPS + 6 OnTrac + 2 Amazon = 32), filing rate is 53%. Industry benchmark is 50 to 70% on Prime Shipping; UPS’s longer 60-day filing window is forgiving but still rewards weekly cadence.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Open claims is real-time financial-recovery KPI. Pair with these:

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look: Carrier-specific portals: UPS Claims (ups.com/upsclaims), USPS Claim portal (usps.com/help/claims), OnTrac claims (ontrac.com/claims), Amazon Logistics claims (Seller Central → Logistics → Claims). Each carrier maintains its own open-claims dashboard. Why our number may legitimately differ from carrier portals: Cross-connector reconciliation:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

This card vs A-to-Z claims: what is the difference? Two different systems. A-to-Z is Amazon’s customer-protection program where the customer disputes the order with Amazon and Amazon adjudicates between buyer and seller. This card is the carrier-side claim where the seller files against the carrier (UPS, USPS, etc.) for service-failure or damage. A late delivery often triggers both: A-to-Z claim from customer (Amazon refunds them, charges seller), plus carrier-side claim from seller (UPS refunds carriage charge to seller). Both are real, both should be tracked. Carrier filing windows differ; what is realistic? UPS is most generous: 60 days for service-failure, 9 months for damage. USPS Priority is 60 days. OnTrac is 90 days. Amazon Logistics is tightest at 30 days. Multi-carrier merchants need a per-carrier filing cadence; weekly review of UPS-late and OnTrac-late, with priority on Amazon Logistics for the tighter window. Service-failure refund: how much do carriers refund? UPS Ground 2-Day: full carriage charge if Parcelforce-fault late. UPS pays approximately the prepaid label cost, typically 5to5 to 12 depending on weight and zone. OnTrac similar. Amazon Logistics matches UPS pricing for SFP. USPS Priority does not refund for service-failure (no money-back-on-late on USPS Priority); USPS does refund Express Mail and Priority Express on service failures. Why is filing rate so often <50%? Three reasons. (1) Manual workflow: per-carrier portal filing takes 5 to 15 minutes each. (2) Documentation requirements vary: damage claims need photos, customer declarations. (3) Filing-window misses: events surface late in customer-service tickets. Solution: bulk-CSV upload (UPS/OnTrac support; USPS does not), weekly review cadence, automated documentation collection. Damage claim documentation: what is needed? UPS: photos of damaged item, damaged packaging, original carton, copy of invoice. USPS: USPS Form 1000 plus photos and proof of value. OnTrac: photos plus consignment number plus invoice. Amazon Logistics: in-portal documentation. Failing to provide all gets the claim held at PENDING_DOCUMENTATION. During Q4 peak, claim volume triples; will carriers keep up? Resolution SLA stretches by 5 to 14 days. Anything sitting open >30 days during peak is normal. Pre-negotiate Q4 cadence with major carriers (UPS account managers will provide). A-to-Z claim wins by Amazon: are they offset by carrier claims? Sometimes. If carrier-side service-failure claim succeeds, the seller recovers carriage but not the full Amazon Concession that Amazon charged back. Net: Amazon cost minus carrier recovery = the residual customer-experience cost. Track both for the full picture. Lost in transit on USPS Priority: realistic claim recovery? USPS Priority insurance includes up to 100coverbydefault.Above100 cover by default. Above 100, declare value at shipment. Lost-claim recovery rate on USPS is moderate (~70%); USPS often takes 14 to 30 days plus a 21-day waiting period before declaring lost. UPS Ground typically faster. Buy with Prime claims: same as SFP? Same carrier-side mechanic. Buy with Prime ships through same carrier mix (UPS, USPS, OnTrac, Amazon Logistics). Carrier-side claims are filed identically. Multi-carrier merchants: how do we coordinate? Single per-week claim-review cadence touching each carrier portal. Most ops teams allocate Friday 30-min slot for the week’s claims. UPS bulk-upload helps; OnTrac and USPS are manual. Total time investment scales sub-linearly with volume because per-carrier-portal context-switch cost is fixed.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Open Claims is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Amazon Prime Shipping (SFP) and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.