> ## 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, Parcelforce Worldwide > Open Claims for Parcelforce Worldwide 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 Parcelforce service-failure and damage claims that the merchant has filed and Parcelforce has not yet resolved. Each open claim is real-time money: carriage refund (typically £6 to £14 per Express24 / Express9 consignment) plus contents-value compensation up to £100 standard or higher with Enhanced Compensation Cover. The card surfaces filing-and-resolution velocity, not the count of *eligible* claims (that is on `par_late_shipments_count` and `par_exception_rate`). | | | | ------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(claims WHERE status IN ('OPEN','UNDER_REVIEW','PENDING_DOCUMENTATION','AWAITING_PARCELFORCE_RESPONSE'))` at the moment of read. Real-time, not period-windowed. | | **Claim categories** | Service-failure (carrier-fault late delivery on Express9 / Express10 / ExpressAM / Express24), damage in transit, lost in transit, and Enhanced Compensation Cover claims for high-value contents. Customer-fault and address-fault claims are not eligible and are not surfaced. | | **Filing window** | Parcelforce's published filing window is **30 days from the failed POD** for service-failure claims and **30 days from delivery (or expected delivery if lost)** for damage / loss claims. Longer than APC's 14-day window; shorter than DPD's 60-day window for damage. The card tracks the in-flight claims regardless of filing-date age. | | **Resolution SLA** | Parcelforce typically settles service-failure claims within 10 working days and damage claims within 21 working days. Anything sitting "open" past 21 working days is unusual and should be chased. | | **Currency** | GBP. International Globaldirect claims convert at filing-date FX. | | **Money-back-on-late mechanic** | Service-failure refund returns the carriage charge only (not the goods value). Damage / loss claim returns goods value (subject to Enhanced Compensation Cover limit if applicable). A late-and-damaged consignment can yield both refunds. | | **B2B vs B2C** | Pooled. B2B claim values are usually higher (B2B contents are higher-value and Enhanced Compensation Cover is more common); B2B filing rate is typically higher because the customer holds the merchant accountable on contract. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time, polled at the moment of card read) | | **Alert trigger** | `>0 unresolved >7d`, any claim sitting open for more than 7 days trips the gauge. The intent is "Parcelforce has the ball; chase the resolution". | | **Roles** | owner, operations, finance | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Parcelforce Worldwide 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-cosmetics merchant: £180 average-order-value glassware-heavy cohort (perfume, serums) shipped on Parcelforce Express24 with Enhanced Compensation Cover purchased on consignments above £100. Reading taken at 14:30 GMT on 18 Mar 26. | Claim category | Count open | Avg open age | Total claim value | | -------------------------------- | ---------- | ------------ | ---------------------- | | Service-failure (Express24 late) | 18 | 4 days | £162 (carriage refund) | | Damage in transit (glassware) | 11 | 9 days | £1,840 (contents) | | Lost in transit | 3 | 14 days | £540 (contents) | | Enhanced Comp Cover (high-value) | 2 | 21 days | £680 (contents) | | **Total open** | **34** | | **£3,222** | The card reads **34** with 16 of them sitting >7 days, tripping the alert. Five things to notice: 1. **The 7-day threshold has 16 hits.** Each of these is Parcelforce-side waiting; chase via the account team. Service-failure claims should clear in 10 working days, damage claims in 21. The two 21-day Enhanced-Comp-Cover claims are at the SLA boundary and need escalation if not resolved this week. 2. **£3,222 of working capital is parked.** For a small-mid merchant, this is meaningful cash. Many merchants underestimate carriage-and-claim recovery as a working-capital lever; a 30-to-90-day-cycle £3K-£10K float is normal. 3. **The 11 damage claims correlate with glassware seasonality.** Spring product launches lift glass-fragrance shipping and damage-in-transit follows. Pair with `par_exception_rate` to see if exception rate is also rising; if yes, packaging review is overdue. 4. **3 lost-in-transit claims is worth flagging.** Lost is rare on Parcelforce's premium tier (well under 0.1% of consignments). Three concurrent lost claims may indicate one bad-actor in a depot or a routing-system bug. Chase the depot identifier on each. 5. **Filing rate vs eligible-rate matters more than the open count.** If `par_exception_rate` showed 180 carrier-fault exceptions this period, only 34 are filed (19% filing rate). Industry benchmark is 50 to 70%. The merchant is leaving an estimated £4K to £6K of additional carriage-refund opportunity unfiled. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together Open claims is a real-time financial-recovery KPI. Pair it with these for the full picture: | Card | Why pair it with Open Claims | What the combination tells you | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Late Shipments](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/late-shipments) | Eligibility-source for service-failure claims. If late count is 50 and open claims is 5, filing rate is \~10% (very low). | Filing rate gap = unrecovered carriage. Industry benchmark is 50 to 70%. | | [Exception Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/exception-rate) | Damage and loss exceptions feed claim filings. A rising damage-in-transit exception cluster will lift this card 5 to 14 days later. | Predictive of the next week's claim filing volume. | | [Claim Value](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/claim-value) | The financial twin. Count vs value diverges when high-value Enhanced Comp Cover claims are open. | A single £500+ Enhanced-Cover claim outweighs 30 £8 carriage refunds. | | [On-Time Delivery Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/on-time-delivery-rate) | The customer-experience root cause. Persistent low OTD = high claim filing potential. | If OTD is dropping but claims are flat, the ops team is filing-disciplined and the issue is upstream. | | [Express24 Service Day Promise](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/express24-service-day-promise) | Express24 is the most-claimed service tier (highest premium, tightest SLA). | Express24 SLA dip = predictable claim volume rise this card. | | Cross-connector: [`shopify.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/refund-rate) | Downstream impact. Damaged-and-refunded customers drive Shopify refund rate up; the claim recovers carrier cost, the refund is the merchant's customer cost. | Combined view: claim recovery + refund cost = net financial exposure on a damage event. | | Cross-connector: [`bigcommerce.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate) | Same as Shopify downstream. | Same caveat. | | Cross-connector: [`apc.apc_open_claims`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/apc/open-claims) | Peer UK premium. APC's 14-day filing window forces faster ops cadence. | Compare resolution velocity, not absolute count. | | Cross-connector: [`royal_mail.rm_open_claims`](/nerve-centre/royal_mail/rm_open_claims) | Value-tier sister carrier, same parent group. Royal Mail's compensation cap is lower (£20 standard) than Parcelforce's. | Different claim ceilings, different filing economics. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Parcelforce's own dashboard:** [Parcelforce ParcelManager](https://parcelmanager.parcelforce.com/) → **Claims → Open Claims**. The portal lists each open claim by reference number, filing date, status, and amount. The closest like-for-like view is the **Open Claims summary** at the top of that page. **Why our number may legitimately differ from Parcelforce's portal:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | ---------------------------------- | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **Status mapping** | Either | Parcelforce uses status labels like `OPEN`, `UNDER_REVIEW`, `PENDING_DOCUMENTATION`, `SETTLED`, `REJECTED`, `WITHDRAWN`. The card pools all non-final statuses as "open". A claim sitting at `PENDING_DOCUMENTATION` is open here but might be rendered as "awaiting your action" in the portal. | | **Sync lag** | Ours \<2 min behind | Card polls Parcelforce's claims API every 30 to 90 seconds. A claim filed in the portal appears within 1 to 2 minutes. | | **Withdrawn / rejected handling** | Equal | Both card and portal exclude withdrawn and rejected claims from the open count. | | **Account-level vs invoice-level** | Either | Some merchants run multiple Parcelforce account numbers; the card pools by connected credentials. ParcelManager allows account-level filtering. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`shopify.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/refund-rate) | Refunds and claims are two sides of the same damage event. Open claim recovers carrier; refund covers customer. | Refund rate moves with delivery experience generally; claims move only when filed. | | [`apc.apc_open_claims`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/apc/open-claims) | Peer UK premium. | Different claim populations. | | [`royal_mail.rm_open_claims`](/nerve-centre/royal_mail/rm_open_claims) | Sister carrier (same parent group). | Different network, different compensation caps. | ## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Parcelforce's filing window is 30 days; what happens if we miss it?** Claim is rejected outright. The carriage refund and damage compensation are forfeited. Most merchants under-file because they discover late events 2 to 3 weeks after the fact and run out of window. Set up a weekly review tied to `par_late_shipments_count` and `par_exception_rate` to file within 7 days of the event; that gives Parcelforce 21 days to resolve before the filing window matters. **What documentation does Parcelforce require for a damage claim?** Photos of the damaged item and packaging (showing the Parcelforce label and any damage to the outer box), the consignment number, the original purchase receipt or stock-transfer note proving the contents value, and a declaration from the customer confirming damage on receipt. For Enhanced Compensation Cover claims add the cover-purchase confirmation. Missing any of these and Parcelforce holds the claim at `PENDING_DOCUMENTATION` until resolved. **Enhanced Compensation Cover: when is it worth buying?** Parcelforce's standard compensation cap is £100 per consignment for damage / loss. Enhanced Compensation Cover lifts the cap up to £2,500 for an additional fee per consignment (typically £1.50 to £8 depending on cover level). Worth it for any consignment where contents value is above £100 and the cover fee is under 5% of contents value. For a £500 jewellery consignment, £4 of cover is rational; for a £150 cosmetics box, £4 of cover may not be. **Why is our claim filing rate so much lower than the eligible-rate?** Three usual reasons. (1) **Manual workflow**: filing each claim in ParcelManager takes 5 to 10 minutes; at 50 weekly claims that is several hours of ops time. (2) **Customer-evidence dependency**: damage claims need customer photos; many customers refund and move on without sending photos. (3) **Filing-window misses**: events surface late in customer-service tickets, often beyond the 30-day window. Solution: bulk-claim CSV upload (account-team feature, not self-serve) plus a weekly review cadence reduce the gap. **Service-failure refund vs damage claim: how do we decide which to file?** File both if both apply. A late-and-damaged consignment yields service-failure refund (carriage charge back) plus damage claim (contents compensation). Parcelforce treat them as separate claims under one consignment number. **Why does a claim sit at "PENDING\_DOCUMENTATION" for weeks?** Almost always because Parcelforce has requested additional information and the merchant has not responded. Check ParcelManager's *Claims → Action Required* tab. Common asks: clearer damage photos, customer signature on a damage declaration, original purchase receipt for high-value contents. Resolution clock pauses while waiting for documentation. **B2B contract-penalty claims: are these surfaced here?** No. The card surfaces Parcelforce-side claims only. B2B contract penalties (where the merchant owes the B2B customer for a missed Express9 delivery on a corporate account) sit in the merchant's CRM / accounting system. Pair this card with `parcelforce_xc_otd_by_channel` to see B2B-channel OTD as the leading indicator of contract-penalty exposure. **Can we appeal a rejected claim?** Yes. ParcelManager has an *Appeal* button on rejected claims. Most appeals succeed when the rejection was for missing documentation that has since been provided. Appeals against fault-attribution (Parcelforce says customer-fault, merchant says carrier-fault) are slower and less successful; provide third-party evidence (driver-camera footage if recorded, neighbour-witness statement) to swing those. **During Q4 peak, claim volume triples; will Parcelforce keep up?** Resolution SLA stretches by 5 to 14 days during Q4. Anything sitting open past 30 days during peak is normal, not a Parcelforce failure. Pre-negotiate a Q4 claims-cadence with your account manager (some merchants get a dedicated Q4 claims liaison on volumes over £20K monthly). The card will look worse than non-peak; reset weekly-review expectations accordingly. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Open Claims* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Parcelforce Worldwide 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.