Filing a lost or damaged package claim
Refund on the buyer's clock. Recover on the carrier's.
This page covers parcels with no delivery scan. Two clocks run: the marketplace clock decides when you refund the buyer, the carrier clock decides when you can file. Refund first, recover second. Insurance is a per-shipment choice at label time, the only moment the decision is cheap.
Four carriers, four claim regimes
USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL each decide when a parcel counts as missing, who is allowed to file, and what evidence they will look at.
all four Coverage is a choice made at label time
Insurance is a per-shipment option priced into the same all-in quote, decided in the one moment the decision is still cheap.
This page is about parcels with no delivery scan — the ones that went quiet in transit, or arrived broken. If tracking shows the parcel was delivered and your buyer says it never turned up, that is a different problem with a different set of remedies, and it lives on tracking says delivered, buyer says not received, which also owns the question of who ultimately pays.
Everything here follows from one structural fact: two clocks are running and they are not connected. The buyer's clock is a marketplace or a payment dispute, and it is short. The carrier's clock is an investigation, and it is long — and it does not even start until the parcel has been missing long enough for the carrier to agree that it is missing. Sellers who wait for the second clock before answering the first lose the buyer, the metric, and often the money as well. Refund or reship first. Recover second. The recovery is a separate transaction that either lands or does not.
Filing windows and required evidence, carrier by carrier
Before any window matters, the parcel has to qualify. A late parcel is not a lost parcel, and every carrier has a threshold — expressed as elapsed transit without a scan — below which a claim is closed rather than queued. Filing early is worse than filing late, because it burns the record. The sequence that works is the same everywhere: confirm the scans have genuinely stopped, raise a trace or search if that carrier requires one first, then file against the tracking number with proof of value attached.
| Carrier | What must be true before you file | Who is allowed to file | What it will ask you for |
|---|---|---|---|
| USPS | The parcel has stopped scanning for longer than the service's own expected transit, and the service is one that carries indemnity at all. | The mailer or the addressee, but only one of them, and proof of value comes from the sender. | Proof of value, evidence of insurance where the service requires it, and for damage, the article and its packaging retained for inspection. |
| UPS | A package search has been opened and closed without locating the parcel. | The shipper, the receiver, or a third party named on the shipment. | Invoice or proof of cost of goods, the tracking number, and for damage, photographs plus retention of the packaging. |
| FedEx | The shipment shows no delivery scan and the service's transit commitment has elapsed. | The shipper or the recipient, filed against the tracking number. | Proof of value, a description of the contents, and for damage, photographs of the item and the carton before it is discarded. |
| DHL Express | The waybill has stopped progressing and a trace has been raised on the shipment. | The contracting party — usually the shipper who booked the waybill. | The commercial or proforma invoice, the waybill, and damage photographs taken before repacking. |
Carrier policy reference — compiled 2026-08-04. Filing windows, waiting periods, and default coverage caps are deliberately not printed here. They differ by service and by domestic versus international movement, and each carrier revises them on its own schedule. The governing documents are the USPS Domestic Mail Manual (indemnity and claims) together with the International Mail Manual for outbound international; the UPS Tariff / Terms and Conditions of Service for your origin country; the FedEx Service Guide in force on your ship date; and the DHL Express Terms and Conditions of Carriage. Read the one that covers your shipment before you rely on a number. Review cadence: annual, by the named marketing owner recorded with this page.
What default declared-value coverage actually covers — and leaves exposed
The most expensive misunderstanding in small-parcel shipping is treating default declared value as insurance. It is not a policy; it is a liability limit. It caps what the carrier will pay if a claim succeeds, and it does nothing at all if the claim fails. That distinction decides real money in three places.
First, it pays your cost, not your price. Carriers indemnify the value of the goods, evidenced by what you paid for them or what they cost you to make — not the retail figure the buyer was charged, and not the shipping you have already spent. Second, it is capped per shipment, so a consolidated parcel holding several orders concentrates several sales behind one limit. Third, it excludes categories. Fragile items, items with no verifiable cost basis, and shipments the carrier judges to have been inadequately packed are exactly the shipments where claims are refused, and inadequate packaging is the single most common denial reason on damage claims. That is why the damage row in the table above says keep the box: a damage claim without the packaging is an assertion, not evidence.
A returned parcel is a different failure with a different bill — why a package comes back, and who pays to reship covers it — and a label bought in error that never moved at all is not a claim but a void with the credit back in your wallet.
When paying for insurance beats self-insuring
Self-insuring is a legitimate strategy and most small sellers are doing it without saying so. The question is only whether it is the cheaper one for a given parcel, and that is arithmetic you can actually do. Take the amount you would absorb if this shipment vanished — cost of goods plus the label plus the replacement's label, since a lost order usually costs you two shipments, not one. Subtract whatever default declared value would return if a claim succeeded. Multiply what is left by how often parcels like this one actually go missing in your own history. Compare that number to the premium. Below the default cap, buying coverage is paying twice for the same exposure. Above it, or on anything fragile, one-of-a-kind, or expensive to remake, the premium is almost always smaller than the loss spread across a month.
The reason this decision has to be made at label time is that it is the only moment it is cheap. Afterwards it is not a decision at all. On GoatLabels insurance is a per-shipment option chosen at quote, with the premium priced into the same all-in number as the carrier rate and paid from the same prepaid balance — so a high-value parcel and an ordinary one can be handled differently without maintaining two workflows. To be exact about what that is and is not: GoatLabels sells the option and shows you the price. It does not underwrite the coverage and it does not adjudicate the claim. Whether a claim is paid is the carrier's decision, made on the carrier's evidence standard, and no shipping platform can promise you otherwise. What a platform can do is make sure the evidence exists — the label, the declared figures, the quote, and the timeline all attached to the same shipment record — and keep the per-label price honest while you are absorbing the loss.
Decide at label time. Refund fast. File with evidence.
A lost parcel is four moves, and three of them are yours. You choose coverage in the one moment the choice is still cheap. You confirm the parcel has genuinely stopped scanning rather than merely running late. You make the buyer whole on the buyer's clock. Then you file against the tracking number with proof of value, and whatever the carrier decides arrives later as a separate event that has nothing to do with the order you already closed.
One-of-a-kind piece, no replacement stock — this is the shipment where the premium is smaller than the loss.
- Tracking
- attached to the order
- Value
- cost of goods, evidenced
- Coverage
- chosen or declined
- Packing
- photographed if fragile
Default declared value is a liability cap, not a policy. Anything above it, or anything fragile, is uncovered unless coverage was chosen here.
Late is not lost. Check before you file.
- Confirm the parcel has stopped scanning for longer than the service's own transit
- Raise a trace or package search first where that carrier requires one
- Pull proof of value: the order record and what the goods cost you
- For damage, keep the article and the packaging — a discarded box ends the claim
Any carrier recovery lands as its own event, weeks later, with no relationship to the case you already closed with the buyer.
It cannot decide your claim.
It can make the evidence exist.
Recovery is a carrier decision on a carrier evidence standard. What a shipping tool controls is the record you file with, the price you paid, and whether the replacement costs you a second time.
Premiums and replacements
from one prepaid balance
Coverage, the label, and the replacement label all draw on the same wallet, funded by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto. A month with two losses in it bills you for two labels and two premiums — never for a subscription you did not use.
A record built
when the box was in your hand
Billy drafts the shipment from a pasted order, a screenshot, or a spoken description, and the destination is validated before you pay. The order, the address, the declared figures, and the quote end up on one shipment record, which is exactly the bundle a claim asks for weeks later.
The premium sits
inside the all-in price
Choosing coverage does not open a second checkout or a separate policy account. It changes one number in the quote, and that number is what leaves your balance — so comparing an insured shipment against an uninsured one is a comparison of two prices, not two products.
Four carriers,
four evidence standards
USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL are quoted on the same parcel every time, and they do not agree about when a parcel is missing, who may file, or what proof counts. Seeing all four at quote time is also how you notice that the cheapest label on a fragile, hard-to-replace item is not always the one to buy.
UPS $12.48 FedEx $13.22 DHL $14.10 USPS $11.79 Shipment records
you can actually pull
The REST API returns the label, the declared values, the quote, and the tracking history per shipment, with signed webhooks for status changes and unlimited calls on every plan — so assembling a claim file is a query rather than an afternoon of screenshots.
Lost and damaged package claims, answered
- How long do I have to file a claim with each carrier?
- Every carrier sets its own filing window, and they differ by carrier, by service, and by whether the parcel is domestic or international. Because those windows are revised on each carrier's own schedule, this page names the governing document per carrier rather than printing a figure that quietly goes out of date.
- What evidence do carriers require for a lost or damaged claim?
- Proof of value and proof of what shipped: the order record or invoice showing what the buyer paid, the label and tracking number, and for damage, photographs of the item and of the packaging as it arrived. Damage claims also depend on the packaging being defensible, because inadequate packing is the most common reason a damage claim is denied.
- How much is covered without buying extra insurance?
- Carriers include a default declared value on most services, and it is a liability limit rather than a policy — it caps what the carrier will pay, applies only if the claim succeeds, and covers your cost of goods rather than the price the buyer paid. Anything above that cap is uncovered unless you chose coverage at label time.
- Should I refund the buyer before the claim is settled?
- Usually yes. The buyer's clock and the carrier's clock are unrelated, and the buyer's runs faster: a marketplace case resolves in days while a carrier investigation runs for weeks. Refund or reship on the buyer's clock, then pursue recovery on the carrier's — treating the claim as a prerequisite is how sellers lose the account metric as well as the parcel.
- Is shipping insurance worth it on a $40 order?
- It is arithmetic, not principle. Compare the premium against the loss you would absorb multiplied by how often parcels of that kind actually go missing for you. Below the carrier's default declared value, paying twice for the same exposure is waste; above it, or on anything fragile or hard to replace, the premium is usually smaller than one loss spread across a month of orders.
- What counts as "lost" — how long before a carrier agrees?
- A parcel is not lost because it is late. Carriers treat a shipment as missing only after it has stopped producing scans for longer than the service's own expected transit, and each one sets that threshold in its published terms. Until then the parcel is delayed, and a claim filed too early is closed rather than queued.
You cannot stop a parcel vanishing.
You can decide what it costs.
Quote all four carriers on the parcel in your hand, choose coverage inside the same all-in price, and keep the label, the values, and the tracking on one record for the day you need them.
Sign up in seconds. No card required. Insurance is per shipment, never a plan.