At a glance
Real-time count of Japan Post damage / loss / non-delivery claims that are currently open and unresolved. Each claim represents tied-up revenue, unhappy customers, and operational time. Domestic claims are rare (Japan Post’s network is high-reliability); international EMS claims are more frequent (transit damage, customs loss, recipient disputes). The card surfaces aging claims for action.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Japan Post 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 Japanese-headquartered DTC apparel brand based in Osaka, ~3,200 outbound parcels per week mixed Yu-Pack + EMS. Reading at 09:30 JST on 12 Apr 26.
What’s interesting:
- 18 claims aged more than 7 days trips the alert. The merchant should have a dedicated weekly cadence for claim follow-up; 18 aged claims means the cadence has slipped or claims aren’t being escalated to Japan Post quickly enough. JPY 628,600 of revenue is tied up in unresolved claims, roughly 5% of weekly revenue on this brand.
- EMS UK and EMS EU dominate the open-claims count (16 of 31). This is consistent with the Exception Rate card’s per-lane reading; customs holds that go unresolved for 14+ days frequently get filed as loss claims, especially when the recipient refuses to pay VAT. The same IOSS / DDP fix that reduces exception rate also reduces this card.
- 10 claims aged more than 14 days are at SLA breach. Japan Post’s published international claim resolution SLA is 30 days, so 14-day claims are not yet breached, but the trend matters; 10 claims at this age mean the merchant is operating with a backlog. Domestic claims are at SLA breach faster (14 days); the one Yu-Pack Cool claim aged >14 days needs immediate escalation.
- Yu-Pack Cool claim rate is structurally higher than dry Yu-Pack. Refrigerated chain disruption (timing, cooler-bag failure) produces damage claims at roughly 3 to 5× the rate of dry shipping. The two open claims represent JPY 18,200 of revenue and likely a much higher customer-experience cost (recipients of damaged refrigerated goods churn at 2 to 3× normal rate).
- JPY 628,600 of unresolved revenue tied up across 31 claims = JPY 20,275 average claim value. The average masks a wide distribution: domestic claims average ~JPY 8,000; international claims average ~JPY 28,000. The JPY 20,000+ average means most of these are full-order replacements or refunds, not partial damage credits. Each one is a customer-experience event worth proactive merchant-side outreach, even before Japan Post resolves the claim.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Japan Post’s own portal: Japan Post Business Customer Portal → Claims and Compensation (損害賠償請求) section. The view is JP-language-primary; English-language summaries are available for international claims via the EMS Customer Service desk. Per-claim status (open / under investigation / awaiting documentation / resolved) is visible per claim. For aggregate views, Japan Post provides per-month claim statistics on a quarterly basis to enterprise contract customers; that report runs ~30 days behind real time and is not suitable for live operational visibility. For international EMS claims specifically, the International Mail Claim portal handles the documentation submission and tracks status; Vortex IQ pulls from the same backend. Why our number may legitimately differ from Japan Post’s portal:
Cross-connector reconciliation:
The most useful reconciliation rule: if open claims count climbs but merchant-side refund rate doesn’t move, the merchant is “waiting on Japan Post” and customers are getting unhappy. If both climb together, the merchant is correctly refunding upfront and pursuing Japan Post separately, the right operational pattern.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
The card alerts on>0 unresolved >7d. That seems aggressive. Should I change it?
The threshold is deliberately tight because every aged claim represents one unhappy customer waiting for resolution. On low-volume merchants (under 1,000 weekly parcels) you should rarely see any aged claims and the alert is informational. On high-volume cross-border merchants the threshold catches backlog growth before it becomes operationally visible. Tune to a per-service threshold (>3 aged Yu-Pack, >10 aged EMS) if the binary alert produces noise.
Should I refund the customer immediately or wait for Japan Post resolution?
Refund first, almost always. Japan Post’s claim-resolution SLA is 14 to 30 days; customer patience is 3 to 7 days. Holding the customer hostage while Japan Post processes the claim damages reputation and produces escalations to social media or chargebacks. The right pattern is: refund the customer immediately, file the claim with Japan Post, treat the eventual claim payout as a recovery cash flow rather than the trigger for the customer refund. Most of the JPY 628,600 in the worked example should already be refunded to customers; the open-claim view is the merchant’s recovery pipeline.
My EMS UK / EU claim count keeps growing. What do I do beyond claim filing?
The claims are a downstream symptom; the upstream cause is exception rate on those lanes. Configure IOSS for EU shipments under EUR 150 and DDP for UK shipments under GBP 135 to remove the customs-hold-led claim class. Most cross-border merchants see EMS UK / EU claims drop 60 to 80% within a month of IOSS / DDP setup.
Why are some claims aging past 30 days?
Three usual causes. (a) Awaiting documentation from the recipient: Japan Post requires the recipient to confirm non-delivery / damage in writing for international claims; if the recipient stops responding, the claim can sit in AWAITING_DOCUMENTATION indefinitely. (b) Insufficient label data: claims for damaged or lost parcels need item-level value declarations and HS codes; if the original label was incomplete, Japan Post requires merchant resubmission. (c) Cross-border post operator handoff: international claims are jointly investigated by Japan Post AND the destination-country post; one side’s slow response stalls the whole claim. The fix is proactive escalation at Day 14 with all documentation already submitted.
My damage-claim approval rate is low. Why?
Two structural reasons. (a) Insufficient packaging proof. Japan Post’s claim-rejection logic favours the carrier when packaging adequacy is in dispute; photographic evidence of the parcel BEFORE shipping (taken by the warehouse team) plus photos of damaged contents AFTER receipt dramatically improve approval rate. (b) Underdeclared value. Items declared at lower value to save on insurance pay out only at the declared value; many merchants under-declare to save on customs duties internationally and discover at claim time that the recovery is capped. Declare actual value and pay the customs duty; the claim recovery pays back the difference if anything goes wrong.
Yu-Pack Cool claim rates are higher than dry. Why?
Cold chain disruption is the cause. Refrigerated shipments must move within strict temperature windows; any handoff delay (post office held overnight, missed connection in a sortation centre) compromises the cooler bag and produces damage at the destination. Japan Post’s Yu-Pack Cool service has tighter routing but also tighter time windows, which means delays produce damage at higher rates than dry. The claim rate of 3 to 5× normal Yu-Pack is structural for refrigerated shipping; treat it as a cost of doing business or shift to a dedicated cold-chain courier (Yamato Cool Takkyubin is the closest commercial alternative) for high-value refrigerated SKUs.
Recipient says “delivered but I never got it”. How do I handle these claims?
The “delivered scan but no parcel” claim is the hardest claim type. Japan Post’s investigation involves checking the GPS-stamped delivery scan against the physical address; in most cases the parcel was either left at a Konbini for the recipient (Yu-Pack default for absent recipients) or delivered to a wrong address with similar number. Japan Post’s resolution process: (1) confirm delivery scan location, (2) check Konbini pickup logs, (3) request investigation with the local post office. Resolution time 14 to 21 days. Refund the customer first; if Japan Post finds the parcel was correctly Konbini-delivered, the customer’s refund is on you, but the customer-experience cost of holding it back is higher.
Should I ever NOT file a claim?
Yes for very low-value international shipments (<JPY 1,000) where the documentation effort exceeds the recovery. Many merchants set a JPY 2,000 threshold below which they self-insure (write off as cost of doing business) rather than file. Domestic claims are nearly always worth filing because resolution is automated and fast; international claims below the threshold often aren’t.
The claim resolution SLA is 14/30 days but my historical resolution time is much longer. Is Japan Post slow with my account?
Possibly. Two checks. (a) Are claims being filed with complete documentation upfront, or are they being bounced back to the merchant for additional info? Incomplete claim filings can stretch resolution by 30+ days. (b) Is the merchant filing at the right Japan Post desk? Domestic claims go to the local post office; international claims should go to the EMS Customer Service desk in Tokyo. Filing through the wrong desk delays the routing. If both are correct, escalate via the Japan Post enterprise account team for any claim aged past SLA.