> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Open Claims, DPD > Open Claims for DPD stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Shipping & Courier](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Live count of DPD claims currently open (filed but not settled or denied). Open claims = trapped cash, unfulfilled customer expectations, and an ageing backlog if not chased. Real-time view, refreshed every webhook from MyDPD's Claims API. | | | | ---------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(claims WHERE status IN ['open', 'under_review', 'awaiting_evidence'])`. A claim moves to closed-settled (DPD pays) or closed-denied (DPD rejects) when resolved. | | **Claim trigger semantics** | Most claims are merchant-initiated against a parcel that was lost, damaged, or delivered to the wrong address. Some are auto-generated by DPD when its system detects a 14-day no-scan condition (lost-in-network). Customer-facing claims do not exist in DPD's flow; the merchant is the claimant. | | **Service-level scope** | All DPD services pooled (Next Day, EU Classic, Saturday). DPDLocal claims surface on the DPDLocal connector card. | | **Predict-slot quirk** | Slot misses do not generate claims (the parcel arrived). They generate refund-the-shipping-fee CS tickets which are tracked elsewhere. | | **Returns / RTO** | RTO parcels typically do not generate claims (customer refused or unavailable, not a carrier failure). A small minority do (RTO due to driver error). | | **Tracking event semantics** | DPD posts a webhook on every claim status change. The card consumes the live count; closed-settled and closed-denied flip the row out of the open count immediately. | | **Geographic scope** | UK domestic + DPD UK outbound. EU sister-carrier claims (DPD France, DPD Germany) flow through their own connectors. | | **Currency** | GBP for UK domestic claims, native currency (EUR for EU outbound) for cross-border. The card displays raw values; the [Claim Value](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/claim-value) card sums in GBP using daily FX. | | **Peak-period degradation** | Q4 typically lifts open-claim count by 2 to 3x because exception count rises \~2 weeks earlier; the lag is consistent. November exceptions feed early-December claim filings. | | **Auto-resolution lag** | DPD's claim-handling SLA is 7 to 21 working days. Claims older than 21 days have likely stalled (waiting on evidence) and need merchant nudge. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time, updates on every webhook) | | **Alert trigger** | `>0 unresolved >7d` (any single claim open more than 7 days trips the alert) | | **Roles** | owner, operations, finance | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your DPD 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 premium-DTC fashion brand (AOV £160, \~12,000 parcels / month). Reading taken at 09:00 GMT on 12 Mar 26. | Claim status | Count | Aggregate value (GBP) | | ------------------------ | ------ | --------------------- | | Open \<7 days | 14 | £2,180 | | Open 7 to 14 days | 8 | £1,420 | | Open 14 to 21 days | 4 | £680 | | Open >21 days (stalled) | 2 | £340 | | **All open (this card)** | **28** | **£4,620** | The card reads **28**. Five things to notice: 1. **The `>0 unresolved >7d` alert is tripped**, 14 claims sit in the 7+ days bucket. This is normal for a 12k-parcel-a-month account; DPD's SLA is 7 to 21 working days, so a backlog this size is expected. The actionable subset is the 4 in 14 to 21 days (likely waiting on customer evidence) and the 2 over 21 days (definitely stalled). 2. **The 28 corresponds to \~0.23% of monthly parcel volume.** Industry benchmark for premium-DTC on DPD UK is \~0.15 to 0.30%. This brand sits at the high end of normal; not a network problem but worth tracking for trend. 3. **The £4,620 trapped is real cash.** At 21-day stall rate of \~7%, expect \~£325 to be permanently denied. DPD typically settles 75 to 85% of legitimate claims; the rest are denied for evidence gaps (no POD photo dispute, no signed declaration of non-receipt). 4. **Cross-reference with [Exception Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/exception-rate).** This brand's exception rate was 1.58% on the 30D window. Of the 189 exceptions in that count, \~28 became claims (15% claim-conversion rate, typical for premium DTC). The remainder either resolved with the customer (refund-and-resend) or were absorbed. 5. **2 claims over 21 days are the urgent action.** Pull these from MyDPD, escalate to the DPD account manager, and force resolution. Each day past 21 lowers the settle-rate \~2 pp; a 30-day-old claim is roughly 50/50 to be denied. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together Open claims is the cash-trapped real-time signal. Pair it with these to see what is driving the backlog and what it costs. | Card | Why pair it with Open Claims | What the combination tells you | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Claim Value (open)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/claim-value) | Monetary counterpart. Count is volume, value is cash exposure. | High count + low value = many small parcels lost (likely accessory SKUs); low count + high value = a few big losses (premium SKUs or wholesale parcels). | | [Exception Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/exception-rate) | Upstream cause. Claims lag exceptions by \~14 days. | Today's exceptions predict next-fortnight claim filings. | | [Failed Deliveries](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/failed-deliveries) | Subset of claim sources. Failed deliveries (3 attempts then RTO) sometimes generate claims if RTO was driver-error. | Most failed deliveries do not become claims; useful as ratio check. | | [Returned to Sender](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/returned-to-sender) | Adjacent. RTO parcels that were genuinely lost-in-RTO may become claims. | Diverging trends mean RTO outcomes are shifting. | | [On-Time Delivery Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/on-time-delivery-rate) | Downstream signal. Persistently low OTD predicts rising claims. | If OTD has been low for 4 weeks but claims are flat, the customer base is more forgiving than expected (or merchant is absorbing without filing). | | Cross-connector: [`shopify.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/refund-rate) | Operational sibling. A claim resolves with cash from DPD; a refund resolves with cash to the customer. | If refunds rise faster than claims, the merchant is eating shipping-failure cost without recovering from DPD. | | Cross-connector: [`jira.open_tickets`](/nerve-centre/jira/open_tickets) | CS tracking. Each claim usually has a Jira ticket. | The DPDLocal cross-platform card "Open Claims Without Jira Ticket" makes this gap explicit. | | Cross-connector: [`bigcommerce.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate) | Same as Shopify above. | Same caveat. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in DPD's own dashboard:** [MyDPD Business portal](https://mydpd.co.uk/) -> **Claims -> Open Claims**, with toggles for status, age, and depot. The closest like-for-like view is *All Open, All Statuses, All Ages*. Per-claim audit at **Claims -> \[claim ID]** with the full evidence trail and DPD-side notes. **Why our number may legitimately differ from MyDPD's portal:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Time zone** | Boundary days off | MyDPD defaults to Europe/London. The card uses UTC. Boundary cases (claim filed late evening UK time) can shift the day. | | **Tracking-feed lag** | Ours lower for last 30 minutes | Claim status webhooks land within seconds in normal conditions but can lag during peak. Most-recent-15-minutes counts may differ slightly. | | **Peak-period throttling** | Ours lower during BFCM | Claim API rate-limits engage during peak; status updates can post 1 to 4 hours late. T-1 days reconcile. | | **Predict-slot vs delivered** | Either | MyDPD does not surface slot-related complaints as claims (correctly). Some merchants confuse refund-the-shipping-fee tickets (shown elsewhere) with claims (shown here). | | **In-review vs awaiting-evidence** | Either | DPD has 4 sub-states inside "open" (open, under\_review, awaiting\_evidence, escalated). The card pools them; MyDPD has separate tabs. The aggregate count matches; per-tab does not. | **Cross-connector reconciliation against commerce platform unfulfilled:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`shopify.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/refund-rate) | Sibling cash-flow signal. Claims recover cash from DPD; refunds spend cash to customer. | If refunds run high but claims run low, the merchant is absorbing without filing. Worth cleaning up. | | [`jira.open_tickets`](/nerve-centre/jira/open_tickets) | CS workload pairing. | If claims rise faster than tickets, customers are filing direct with DPD rather than via CS, signals a CS-process gap. | | Cross-3PL: [`shipbob.sb_otd_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shipbob/on-time-delivery-rate) | Different population entirely. | Do not arithmetically reconcile. | ***
Documentation cross-reference (for merchants comparing UK couriers) Same-network UK premium-DTC claim-rate benchmarks (claims per 1,000 parcels, normal weeks): * DPD UK: 1.5 to 3.0 per 1,000 * DPDLocal: 2.0 to 3.5 per 1,000 (separate connector) * Royal Mail Tracked 24: 3 to 6 per 1,000 * Evri: 6 to 12 per 1,000 DPD's claim-handling SLA (7 to 21 working days) is also tighter than peers (Evri 14 to 35 days, Royal Mail 14 to 28 days). This is part of why high-AOV brands stay on premium tiers.
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **DPD vs DPDLocal claim handling, is one easier to file?** Both ride the same DPD Group claims process and the same MyDPD-portal Claims interface, so file-time experience is identical. The differences are at the SLA: DPD has a contracted 7 to 21 working-day claim SLA on premium accounts; DPDLocal SLAs vary (typically 10 to 28 days). Settle-rate is also slightly higher on DPD (\~80%) vs DPDLocal (\~75%) because DPD account managers escalate borderline claims. For high-value parcels, DPD is materially better at recovery; for low-value parcels (\<£20) the difference is small. **How is in-slot delivery measured, and does an out-of-slot generate a claim?** No. Slot misses are not claims. The parcel arrived; the customer paid for a 1-hour or 30-minute window and got it outside that window. The remedy is a refund-of-the-£4.95-slot-fee, processed by the merchant's CS team, not via DPD's claims system. Track the volume on [Predict Slot Accuracy](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/predict-slot-accuracy) and the resulting CS tickets on Jira. **How does DPD's predict-app integration affect claim filings?** The DPD app sends customers POD photos automatically, which dramatically reduces "delivered to wrong door" disputes (the most common false-positive claim). App-using customer bases generate \~30% fewer claims of this type. The app does *not* affect lost-in-transit or damaged-in-transit claims, which depend on network conditions, not customer-side visibility. **Why is the count rising during peak even though DPD's network is stable?** Lag from exceptions. Open claims rise \~14 days after exception rate rises. November exceptions (Black Friday volume) feed early-December claim filings; the open-claim count can spike weeks into January even though the network has recovered. Read this card with [Exception Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/exception-rate) on a 14-day-shifted basis during and after peak. **The customer says "DPD said delivered but parcel didn't arrive". Should I file a claim?** Yes, immediately. This is the classic false-positive-delivery case. File within 14 days of the alleged delivery date (DPD's hard cutoff), attach the customer's signed declaration of non-receipt, and request the POD photo from MyDPD. If the photo shows a door that does not match the customer's address, you will settle in 7 to 14 days. If the photo matches and the customer still claims non-receipt, DPD usually denies; consider a goodwill resend instead. **Why are some claims still open more than 21 days?** Three usual reasons. (1) **Awaiting evidence**, DPD asked for the customer's declaration or proof-of-value invoice and the merchant has not uploaded it yet. (2) **Disputed POD**, DPD's POD photo matches the address; the merchant disputes; the case is escalated. (3) **High-value review**, claims over £500 typically go to a manual reviewer at DPD HQ and add 5 to 10 days. Pull the >21-day cohort from MyDPD, work each case individually; do not let them age further. **What is the returns flow and what does it have to do with claims?** DPD returns ride either DPD's "Inbound Consumer Returns" service or a manual courier return. Most returns do not generate claims (the parcel was returned cleanly). A small subset (\<2% of returns) become claims if the return parcel itself was damaged or lost in transit, treated as a fresh outbound for claim purposes. Track on [Returned to Sender](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/returned-to-sender). **Why is today's count high but the trend looks fine?** Real-time spikes are usually filing batches; many merchants file claims weekly in a Friday batch. The spike on Friday afternoon is normal, watch the rolling 7-day count. Nothing acute should be flagged based on a single hour's reading. **Multi-shipper strategy, when does DPD's claim-recovery rate justify the premium?** Across a typical premium-DTC mix, DPD's higher settle rate (\~80% vs \~50% on Evri) recovers \~£0.80 per £1 of claim value compared with \~£0.50. For a 12,000-parcel-a-month brand at AOV £160 with 1.5% exception rate (180 exceptions, \~30 claims per month, \~£5,000 claim value), the difference is \~£1,500 per month in recovered cash on DPD vs Evri. That is roughly £18,000 per year, materially offsetting the £2-per-parcel premium at this volume. The maths breaks down at low AOV (\<£40) where claim values are small and recovery rates matter less. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Open Claims* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across DPD 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](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.