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Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Shipping & Courier

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At a glance

Count and aggregate value of USPS claims currently open (filed and not yet adjudicated). Claims are filed via USPS.com for parcels lost in transit, damaged, or with missing contents on services that include declared-value insurance. The card tracks the inventory of in-flight claims so finance can reconcile expected refunds and operations can chase aged unresolved claims.

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your USPS 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 US DTC ceramics merchant shipping fragile pottery via USPS Priority Mail with insured-mail add-on, out of Asheville, NC. Reading taken on 12 Mar 26. The card reads 40 open claims totalling $6,415; the alert at >0 unresolved >7d has tripped (median age 9 days). Five things to notice:
  1. Damage claims dominate this merchant’s profile. Pottery is fragile; the $4,120 damage exposure is structural. Mitigation: improve packaging (more dunnage, double-boxing for high-value pieces), consider third-party shipping insurance (Shipsurance, ShipCover) which has shorter adjudication times. Long-term, claim rate >2% of shipped value warrants a packaging audit.
  2. The 1,820lost−in−transitismostlyPriorityMailwithoutinsuranceover1,820 lost-in-transit is mostly Priority Mail without insurance over 100. Each claim is capped at the declared-value insurance level; if the lost item was worth 250butonly250 but only 100 was insured, the claim pays out $100 maximum. For high-value SKUs, set declared value at the actual retail price up to USPS limits.
  3. Median age of 9 days is on the watch list. USPS service standard is 5 to 10 business days; calendar-day median of 9 is at the edge. Two of the 40 claims are at 24+ days and need active follow-up via USPS Help Hub or by calling 1-800-275-8777 with the claim number.
  4. The 40 open claims represent roughly 0.4% of monthly volume. Industry typical for a fragile-goods DTC merchant is 0.3 to 0.8%; this is on the better end. For non-fragile merchants (apparel, paper goods), claim rate should be 0.05 to 0.2%.
  5. Cash-flow exposure is real but bounded. 6,415isthegrossopenamount;expectedpay−outattypical756,415 is the gross open amount; expected pay-out at typical 75% approval rate is roughly 4,800. Treat the higher number as the cap and the lower as the realistic recovery for finance forecasting.
Note: this card is paired naturally with Claim Value, which tracks the total USD value of open and recently-paid claims as a finance-recovery feed. Together they answer “how much do I have outstanding?” and “what’s the typical pay-out?”.

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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 USPS’s own dashboard: USPS Claims Portal → Manage Claims (logged-in account view). Lists every claim filed by the account-holder, with status, date filed, declared value, and adjudication notes. The card is the operational mirror; the portal is the source-of-truth. Why our number may legitimately differ from USPS’s portal: Cross-connector reconciliation:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

A claim has been open 30+ days, what should I do? Call 1-800-275-8777 with the claim number, or message via the USPS Help Hub requesting status. Most aged claims resolve within a week of follow-up. If the claim remains unresolved after 90 days, escalate to a USPS Consumer Affairs office (regional). Aged claims are not lost; they’re queued, and follow-up moves them up. My claim was denied, what do I do? USPS’s denial includes a reason code. Common denials: “insufficient evidence” (no receipt or proof of value), “filing-window missed” (more than 60 days for Express, 365 for Priority), “not covered service” (Media Mail, Parcel Select). For “insufficient evidence”, file an appeal at the Claims portal with additional documentation (Shopify order, invoice, photo of damaged contents). Appeal success rate is 30 to 50% with proper documentation. Should I use third-party shipping insurance instead of USPS Insured Mail? Often yes for high-volume DTC. Third-party insurers (Shipsurance, ShipCover, U-PIC) typically charge 1.5 to 3% of declared value vs USPS’s add-on at 2.95forfirst2.95 for first 50, 4.65forfirst4.65 for first 100, etc. For sub-$100 declarations, USPS is cheaper. For higher values, third-party is usually cheaper. Adjudication speed: third-party averages 5 to 10 calendar days; USPS averages 14 to 21. Run the math against your average declared value. What evidence do I need to file a damage claim? USPS requires: (1) original packing receipt or label scan, (2) photos of the damaged item and damaged packaging (preferably before discarding), (3) proof of value (Shopify order, retail invoice, manufacturer’s MSRP), (4) the recipient’s statement or your customer-service email thread documenting the damage report. Filing without all four reduces approval probability significantly. How do I file a claim for a lost shipment? Wait the minimum filing window (Priority Mail Express: 7 days; Priority Mail and Ground Advantage: 15 days). File at USPS Claims Portal with: (1) tracking number, (2) declared value or insured value, (3) proof of value (Shopify order or invoice), (4) USPS will contact recipient to confirm non-receipt. Approval is typically 14 to 21 days from filing. Can I file claims in bulk? Yes for Business Customer Gateway accounts. Bulk-claim filing via the Online Claims API allows up to 50 claims per submission. Useful for merchants with high claim volume; ask your USPS Business Service Network rep for the API spec. How does this affect my Q4 cash flow? Q4 generates the highest claim volume of the year (more shipments, more damage, more customer disputes around delivery). Open claims from Q4 typically don’t resolve until February or March. Plan finance forecasts to lag Q4 claim filings by 60 to 90 days for cash-conversion. Why are some of my Priority Mail Express claims for lost mail denied? Two usual reasons. (1) Acceptance scan missing. If USPS has no acceptance scan for the parcel, USPS argues it never entered the system. Mitigation: always tender via SCAN form (PS Form 5630) at acceptance to create the scan. (2) Recipient confirms receipt later. If USPS contacts the recipient and they say “actually it arrived after I filed”, the claim auto-denies. Coordinate with customer-service to update USPS via the claim notes. My claim’s pay-out is for less than declared value. Why? USPS pays repair-or-replace cost or the actual loss, whichever is lower. For damaged goods, USPS may estimate the depreciated value. For lost-with-recovery (parcel found and returned), USPS pays only the cost of the delay, not the full declared value. Document carefully and appeal if the pay-out seems inappropriate.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

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