> ## 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, Shippo > Open Claims for Shippo 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:** [Exceptions & Claims](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Real-time count of open Shippo Insurance claims for damaged, lost, or stolen parcels. The merchant-facing "money still owed back to me" number, surfaced as a count rather than a value to keep the per-claim case load visible. | | | | --------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(claims WHERE status IN ('SUBMITTED','UNDER_REVIEW','PENDING_DOCUMENTATION') AND closed_at IS NULL)`. Excludes paid-out and rejected claims (those are terminal). | | **API endpoint** | Shippo `GET /insurance/claims` (Insurance API). Reads `claim_object_id`, `status`, `submitted_at`, `claim_amount`, `incident_type`. | | **Eligible incidents** | Three types covered by Shippo Insurance: damage on arrival, total loss in transit, theft (porch piracy where signature was not required). Insurance must have been added at label-purchase time; un-insured shipments cannot file. | | **Carrier scope** | All carriers Shippo brokers (USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL). Note USPS Priority Mail includes `$100` of free insurance; declared values above that need explicit Shippo Insurance. | | **Coverage cost** | Shippo Insurance is roughly 1.5 to 3% of declared value, with a $1 minimum per parcel. Far cheaper than carrier-direct insurance (USPS retail insurance is ~$2.65 for \$100 coverage). | | **Filing window** | Damage: 30 days from delivery. Loss: 60 days from ship date for domestic, 90 days for international. Past-window claims are auto-rejected; the card excludes them. | | **Resolution typical time** | 7 to 21 business days for clean cases (full documentation submitted upfront). 30 to 60 days for cases requiring back-and-forth. The `>7d unresolved` alert captures the slow tail. | | **Returns / RTO** | RTO is **not** an insurance event. RTO is a delivery-attempt failure tracked separately in [Returned to Sender](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/returned-to-sender). | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time). The count reflects live open-claim state, not a historical period. | | **Alert trigger** | `>0 unresolved >7d`, fires whenever any claim has been open more than seven days without a status change. | | **Roles** | owner, operations, finance | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Shippo 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 US DTC home-fragrance brand on Shopify, \~6,000 shipments per month via Shippo, mostly USPS Priority Mail with Shippo Insurance bought on every parcel valued over \$50. Reading taken at 11:00 ET on 12 Mar 26. | Claim type | Open count | Total claimed value | Avg days open | | ------------------------------- | ---------- | ------------------- | ------------- | | Damage on arrival | 8 | \$640 | 9 | | Total loss in transit | 3 | \$385 | 14 | | Theft (signature not required) | 2 | \$215 | 12 | | **All open claims (this card)** | **13** | **\$1,240** | **11.4** | The card reads **13 open claims** with the alert at `>0 unresolved >7d` **tripped** (10 of 13 are past 7 days). Five things to notice: 1. **Damage is the biggest count.** Eight of 13 claims are damage-on-arrival, suggesting either fragile-product packaging needs review or a particular carrier hub is rough on parcels. Cross-reference with [Cost Outliers](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/high-cost-shipment-outliers) for re-ship cost patterns and [Exception Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/exception-rate) for damage scans. 2. **The 11.4 day average tells you Shippo Insurance is processing slowly this month.** Typical clean cases close in 7 to 14 days; 11.4 is at the upper end. Possible causes: incomplete documentation on the merchant's side (missing photo of damaged item), or carrier-side delay providing proof of loss. 3. \*\*$1,240 is recoverable revenue, not a permanent loss.** Treat this as a working-capital number: $1,240 is currently locked up pending approval. Most clean cases pay out at 80 to 100% of claimed value. 4. **Theft / porch piracy is 2 cases.** Both will require police-report numbers from the recipient before Shippo will pay out. If the recipient cannot or will not file, the case dies. Forewarn the customer at file-time. 5. \*\*The brand should add signature-required for parcels over $200.** Two of the 13 claims are theft on $100+ packages where signature was not required. Signature-required adds \~\$3 per parcel for USPS, breakeven at one prevented loss. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together Open claims is a working-capital card. Pair it with these to manage the case load: | Card | Why pair it with Open Claims | What the combination tells you | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Claim Value (open)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/claim-value-open) | The dollar version of the same data. | Count tells you CS workload; value tells you revenue-at-risk. Read together for prioritisation. | | [Exception Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/exception-rate) | Upstream cause for damage claims. | A damage-scan exception today predicts a damage claim 1 to 3 days from now. | | [Failed Deliveries](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/failed-deliveries) | Upstream cause for loss claims. | A "lost in transit" delivery typically converts to a loss claim 7 to 14 days later. | | [Returned to Sender](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/returned-to-sender) | Different failure mode. | RTO is not an insurance event; it is a delivery-attempt failure. Track separately. | | Cross-connector: [`shopify.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/refund-rate) | Downstream impact when claims are slow. | Slow claims increase the temptation to issue Shopify refunds without waiting; the merchant pays twice if the claim eventually pays out. | | Cross-connector: customer NPS / Klaviyo post-purchase survey | Downstream sentiment. | Customers waiting on damage replacement score lower NPS until resolved. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Shippo's own dashboard:** [Shippo App](https://apps.goshippo.com/) → **Insurance → Claims**. The closest like-for-like view is *All Statuses except Paid and Rejected*. Each row shows claim ID, parcel value, incident type, and current status with sub-states the API does not expose. **Why our number may legitimately differ from Shippo's report:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | ------------------------------ | ------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Status taxonomy** | Either | Shippo's UI shows sub-states ("awaiting carrier confirmation", "pending photo upload"); the API rolls these into the `UNDER_REVIEW` umbrella. Counts match; UI categorisation differs. | | **Time zone** | None | Real-time card; the count is the same regardless of zone. | | **Sync lag** | Ours lower for new claims | Newly filed claims appear in Shippo's UI immediately but take 5 to 30 minutes to surface in the API. | | **Past-window auto-rejection** | Ours excludes terminal | Claims rejected for past-deadline filing are excluded from the open count even though they may still appear in some Shippo views. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Carrier-direct claims (USPS Domestic Claims Inquiry, UPS Capital Insurance) | Independent claim systems. | Merchants who insure carrier-direct (rare on Shippo brokered shipments) have parallel claims. The card only reads Shippo Insurance claims. | | [`shopify.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/refund-rate) | Indirect downstream. | Merchants who refund customers immediately and recover from Shippo Insurance separately will have refund-rate climb without claim-count climb. | ***
Documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple shipping aggregators) Open-claim metrics exist on peer shipping platforms with conceptually similar definitions: * [`sendle.sen_open_claims`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/sendle/open-claims) (Sendle Cover claims) * [`ship_theory.shi_open_claims`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ship-theory/open-claims) (sub-carrier claim aggregator)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Should I file claims through Shippo Insurance or carrier-direct?** Through Shippo Insurance, almost always. Carrier-direct claims (USPS Domestic Claims, UPS) require physical paperwork mailed to addresses, take 30 to 90 days, and pay out at lower rates than Shippo Insurance. Shippo Insurance is API-driven, processed in 7 to 21 days, and pays out at 90 to 100% of declared value for documented cases. **The customer says the parcel arrived damaged. What documentation does Shippo need?** Three items: (1) photos of the damaged item AND the original packaging, (2) original sale value (Shopify order screenshot is fine), (3) declared value at label-purchase (already on the Shippo record). Submit at *Shippo App → Insurance → File a Claim*. The Shippo Insurance API endpoint is `POST /insurance/claims` for headless filing. **The customer says the parcel never arrived. When can I file a loss claim?** USPS: 7 days after expected delivery for Priority, 14 days for Ground Advantage. UPS / FedEx: 24 hours after the last tracking scan stops updating, but Shippo recommends 7 days to allow recovery. International (DHL): 14 days. The card excludes claims filed before the carrier's eligibility window because they will auto-reject. **Theft / porch piracy claims, what is the catch?** Two catches. (1) The shipment must NOT have been signature-required (signature-required parcels are protected by carrier-side liability separately). (2) The recipient must file a police report and provide the report number. Without it, Shippo Insurance will not pay out. Tell customers up front: "If your parcel says delivered but you did not receive it, file a police report at your local department within 48 hours, then send us the report number and we will refund/reship". **My claim is at 14 days unresolved. Should I escalate?** Yes. Email Shippo support (`support@goshippo.com`) referencing the claim ID and asking for a status update. Most stuck claims need a documentation nudge from the merchant or a carrier-side action that has not happened. The `>7d` alert gives you the trigger. **I refunded the customer immediately, then the claim paid out. What happens?** You keep the claim payout; the customer keeps the refund. This is the cost of immediate-refund customer-service policy. To avoid double-paying, hold the customer refund pending claim resolution and communicate timeline ("we will refund or reship within 14 to 21 days while we recover from the carrier"). Margin-conscious shops do this; CS-first shops accept the double-pay as a service-quality cost. **What is the typical payout rate?** Clean cases (full documentation, clear incident, within filing window) pay out at 90 to 100% of declared value. Edge cases (partial documentation, late filing, signature-required theft) pay out at 50 to 75% if at all. Shippo's average across all merchants is roughly 85% of total claimed value paid out. **Q4 / BFCM, claims spike. Is the alert useful?** Yes. The alert at `>0 unresolved >7d` is volume-agnostic and stays useful at peak. The dollar threshold in [Claim Value (open)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/claim-value-open) is more useful for prioritisation when the count gets high; sort the underlying table by claim value descending. **Can I see the claim value alongside the count?** Yes, in the sibling card [Claim Value (open)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shippo/claim-value-open). This card surfaces the case-load count; the value card surfaces the working-capital exposure. Read together for a full picture. **International parcels, do they have different claim rules?** Yes. International filing windows are longer (60 to 90 days for loss vs 30 to 60 domestic). Customs-confiscated parcels are not insurable. Shippo Insurance covers DHL Express international parcels but not all carriers; check the carrier's coverage at label-purchase time. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Open Claims* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Shippo 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.