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Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Shipping & Courier

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At a glance

Count and aggregate value (in GBP) of UK shipping claims currently open across the underlying carriers. Claims are filed via each carrier’s portal (DPD, Royal Mail, ParcelForce, FedEx UK) for parcels lost or damaged in transit on services that include compensation cover.

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your NetDispatch 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 UK DTC homeware merchant via Net Dispatch with mixed carrier portfolio. Reading taken on 12 Mar 26. The card reads 65 open claims totalling £4,060; alert at >0 unresolved >7d has tripped (median 12 days). Five things to notice:
  1. Royal Mail aged claims (median 18-21 days) need active follow-up. Royal Mail is the slowest UK adjudicator; chasing aged claims via the Royal Mail Claims portal is necessary for pay-out. Two of the 20 are at 30+ days and will likely need MP-level escalation if Royal Mail doesn’t respond.
  2. DPD claims at 5-6 days median are in normal range. DPD’s 5-10 day SLA is the strongest UK adjudication; expect resolution within 1-2 weeks of filing.
  3. Evri at 32 of 65 (49%) of claims is disproportionate to volume. Evri’s higher loss-and-damage rate combined with weakest pay-out rates means Evri claim leakage is a persistent finance issue. Compare Evri’s saving (~£2/parcel cheaper) against expected unrecovered loss; for high-AOV products, the trade often inverts.
  4. Expected pay-out: ~£2,400 to £3,000. DPD strong (£900-1,100), Royal Mail uncertain (£800-1,200), Evri weak (£400-650), ParcelForce moderate (£170-200). Use the lower end for cash-flow forecasting.
  5. Q4 is coming. UK Christmas peak typically generates 2x to 3x normal claim volume; open balances climb proportionally. Plan finance reconciliation for January-February.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Net Dispatch’s own dashboard: Net Dispatch Dashboard → Claims. Aggregates claims filed via the Net Dispatch claim-management workflow across underlying carriers. For carrier-specific direct claims, see each carrier’s portal: Royal Mail Claims, DPD Account → Claims, ParcelForce Claims, etc. Why our number may legitimately differ from Net Dispatch’s portal: Cross-connector reconciliation:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is Royal Mail so slow to adjudicate? Royal Mail’s claim process is paper-heavy and process-bound; backlog on lost-mail-search inquiries adds 7-21 days to typical 14-30 day SLA. Aged Royal Mail claims often need polite follow-up via the Royal Mail customer-services line (03457 740740) or in extreme cases an escalation to your MP via writetothem.com. Should I buy higher Royal Mail compensation cover? For sub-£20 retail-value parcels, no (default cover suffices). For £20-£100, yes (Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm includes £100 cover). Above £100, consider third-party UK shipping insurance (ParcelHero, ShipHub, etc) for faster adjudication. Evri claims keep getting denied. Why? Evri (formerly Hermes UK) has the strictest evidence requirements: physical proof of damage with original packaging, photographs at exact angles, retailer invoice. Many Evri claims are denied for “insufficient evidence”. Mitigation: build a customer-service script that requires photo-evidence collection at first contact for any damaged Evri parcel. What evidence does DPD need for damage claims? DPD Account Customers can claim via their portal. Evidence: photos of damaged item AND damaged packaging, packing list / invoice, customer-statement. DPD’s adjudication is fast (5-10 days) and approval rates are high with proper documentation. Filing-window check? Royal Mail 14 days, DPD 30 days, Evri 28 days, ParcelForce 30 days. Net Dispatch surfaces filing-deadline warnings; act on them. Missed-window claims auto-deny. Q4 cash-flow plan? UK Christmas peak generates 2-3x normal claim volume. Open claims from Q4 typically don’t fully resolve until February-March. Plan finance forecasts to lag Q4 claim filings by 30-90 days. Should I switch claim-management to a third-party? For high-volume merchants (£500K+/year UK shipping spend), specialist claim-management services (Stanton House, ClaimCompass) handle filings, follow-ups, and appeals on a commission basis (typically 20-30% of recovered amount). For smaller merchants, in-house management via Net Dispatch is fine.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Open Claims is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across NetDispatch 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.