At a glance
Real-time count of DHL InExpress claims you have filed that are not yet resolved (paid out, denied, or withdrawn). Each open claim is unrecovered cash plus a customer in limbo. The card lights up when any claim has been open >7 days, the typical investigation window for a routine loss-or-damage claim.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your DHL InExpress data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK gifts retailer with ~5,000 InExpress shipments per month. Reading taken at 09:00 GMT on 12 Mar 26 (real-time).
The card reads 13. The alert at
>0 unresolved >7d is tripped (9 of the 13 are over 7 days old). Five things to notice:
- Aged claims are the operational signal, not the count. 13 open claims on 5,000 shipments (0.26%) is fine in volume terms. The 22-day customs claim and the 11-day median damage claims are the issue. DHL’s stated 7-day target has been blown on most of these. Escalate via your DHL account manager.
- Damage on arrival is your biggest cluster. 6 claims worth £680, investigate root cause. Is it a packaging change? A new SKU with fragile contents? Audit the recent damaged shipments for a common factor.
- Customs claims take 3 to 4x longer to resolve. Post-Brexit, parcels lost at customs require multi-agency investigation (DHL, HMRC, EU customs office). Set internal expectation: customs claims are 15 to 30 days, not 7.
- The £1,435 isn’t recovered yet. Claim Value (open) shows the cash exposure. Until DHL pays, this is unrecovered loss on your balance sheet, flag to finance for proactive provisioning.
- Each open claim is a customer in limbo. Even if you’ve already refunded the customer (good practice), they remember the bad experience. NPS hit is roughly 30 to 50 points per claim experience versus a smooth delivery; lifecycle revenue impact is the real cost.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Open claims is the unresolved-cash counter. Pair with cause and value:Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in DHL InExpress’s own dashboard: MyDHL+ portal → Claims → Open Claims. Each row is one open claim with reference, status, age, and compensation amount. The card sums the row count forstatus NOT IN ('Closed','Paid','Denied','Withdrawn').
Why our number may legitimately differ from MyDHL+:
Cross-connector reconciliation:
Internal identity (within DHL InExpress):
dhl_open_claims = COUNT(claims with status != closed). The card and Claim Value (open) read the same population from /claims with one returning count and the other returning sum-of-amounts.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
A claim has been open for 30 days. Should I just write it off? Not yet. Customs-related claims legitimately take 15 to 30 days; non-customs claims open this long mean DHL is stuck on internal investigation. Three actions in order: (1) check the claim status (PendingDocumentation means DHL is waiting on you, upload immediately), (2) chase via your DHL account manager with the claim reference, (3) escalate to DHL’s claims supervisor if status hasn’t moved in 14 days.
How do I file a claim?
MyDHL+ → Claims → New Claim. You’ll need the AWB (air waybill), proof of value (invoice, receipt), and damage photos for damage claims. The claim form is online and submission is immediate; investigation takes 7 to 14 days for routine claims, 15 to 30 days for customs-related claims.
What’s DHL’s coverage limit for InExpress?
Default declared value coverage is £100 (or local equivalent) for InExpress. Higher coverage requires you to declare value at label generation and pay an additional premium (typically 1 to 2% of declared value). Without declared value, claims are capped at the default; this is why high-value shipments need declared value upfront.
Is the open-claim count exclusive of withdrawn claims?
Withdrawn claims close immediately and are excluded. If you withdraw a claim and it still appears on the card, it’s a sync lag, refresh in 5 to 15 minutes.
Can I see who filed each claim?
The card surfaces the count and ageing only. To see per-claim detail (filer, AWB, type, amount, status), go to MyDHL+ Claims; or use Claim Value (open) for the cash view. A drill-through is on the roadmap.
My open count won’t go to zero. Why?
Steady-state for an InExpress merchant doing >2,000 shipments per month is typically 5 to 15 open claims at any time, with new ones flowing in as old ones resolve. Zero is unrealistic; the goal is “no claim older than 14 days unresolved without a status update”.
What’s the difference between “Submitted” and “Investigating”?
Submitted = you filed it, DHL has not yet assigned an investigator. Investigating = DHL is actively working on it (locating the parcel, contacting depots, etc.). Submitted-stuck claims for >48h are an escalation signal, they shouldn’t sit in queue.
Does the card include claims for parcels not yet delivered?
Yes. A parcel reported lost-in-transit can have a claim filed before its estimatedDeliveryDate. The card counts the claim from filing date onward.