ClaimRouteFreight Claims Recovery Desk
For manufacturers & distributors shipping LTL/FTL freight — $5M–$150M revenue, no in-house claims specialist

A shipment showed up damaged, short, or missing. Find out in 24 hours if the carrier owes you money.

Forward the bill of lading, proof of delivery, and damage or shortage photos for one shipment. ClaimRoute classifies the claim, checks the carrier's liability and the applicable deadline clock under the Carmack Amendment, and tells you — in plain language, within 24 hours — whether it's filable. If it is, we file it, track it, and handle the carrier from acknowledgment to recovery check. You never install software or learn the statute.

No recovery, no fee. Standard fee is 25% of recovered dollars on claims under $2,500, 20% on $2,500–$10,000, 15% above that — charged only once a claim is paid.

$114.03BU.S. LTL freight market, 2025, growing at a 4.08% CAGR — Mordor Intelligence
50–60%baseline LTL claim denial rate industry-wide, vs. 15–25% for automated best-in-class shops — CorePiper 2026 State of Freight Claims Report (single-source estimate)
~50%of eligible freight claims are estimated to never even get filed — same source, treated as directional, not precise
284+live "freight claims specialist" job postings nationally, $18–37/hr — Glassdoor & ZipRecruiter, accessed July 2026

The five-business-day window most ops teams don't know exists

Every LTL and FTL shipment travels under the Carmack Amendment (49 U.S.C. § 14706), a federal statute that makes the carrier strictly liable for loss or damage — but only if the shipper follows narrow, deadline-driven procedures. Concealed damage must typically be reported within 5 business days of delivery. A formal claim must typically be filed within the window set by the bill of lading, commonly up to 9 months. Miss either clock, and a claim that was worth pursuing becomes worth nothing — not because the carrier wasn't liable, but because nobody's job was to track the deadline.

Concealed damageDamage that wasn't visible at delivery has to be reported within 5 business days — most receiving teams find out on day 6 or 7, after the clock has already run.
Shortage & non-deliveryEach claim type — visible damage, concealed damage, shortage, non-delivery — has its own notice timing and documentation rules. Filing the wrong type of claim is one of the most common reasons carriers deny.
Nobody's jobCompanies large enough to justify a dedicated freight-claims specialist hire one — 284+ live postings, $18–37/hr, prove that. Below that size, claims fall to whoever in ops or AP has a spare hour, which means most months, nobody does.

What you get back — not software you have to run

You never log into a dashboard to process your own claims. Every cycle ends with a finished, filed claim and, when it resolves, a check.

Freight Claim Eligibility Check

A plain-language, 24-hour answer: filable or not, and why — before you commit to anything.

Claim Packet

Bill of lading, proof of delivery, itemized valuation, and evidence, assembled and filed in the format the specific carrier requires.

Deadline Clock tracking

Every carrier's 30-day acknowledgment and 120-day resolution window, monitored and escalated automatically as it approaches.

Denial Review

If a carrier denies or lowballs, a Claims Specialist personally reviews the reason and fights it — you never negotiate with a carrier's claims department yourself.

Full correspondence log

Every document, classification, sign-off, and carrier exchange, retained with a timestamped audit trail.

Recovery check

When a claim resolves in your favor, funds are collected and paid to you, minus the Contingency Fee.

Inside a claim, from forward to resolved

Forward

Send the bill of lading, proof of delivery, damage or shortage photos, and invoice value for one shipment, by email or upload — no account setup required.

Classify

We determine the claim type — visible damage, concealed damage, shortage, or non-delivery — verify carrier liability, and calculate the exact deadline clock that applies.

Specialist review

A Claims Specialist reviews the classification and liability determination before anything is sent to a carrier — nothing is filed without human sign-off.

File & track

The claim packet is filed with the carrier; you get a confirmation and an expected-timeline summary, and the deadline clock is monitored until resolution.

Resolve

If paid, funds are collected and you're paid out minus the Contingency Fee. If denied, your Claims Specialist reviews the denial and fights it, escalates, or — rarely — refers it to independent counsel.

Contingency only. Never hourly.

ClaimRoute is paid out of what it recovers — never a flat fee, never by the hour, and never a cost to try.

Freight Claim Eligibility Check

Forward one damaged, short, or lost shipment. Get a filable/not-filable answer in 24 hours, with the reason if it's not filable — at no cost, with no obligation to proceed.

Free

Standard — under $2,500

25% of recovered dollars

charged only on a paid claim

  • Full classification & filing
  • Deadline clock tracking
  • Denial Review included

Standard — over $10,000, or 10+ claims/quarter

15% of recovered dollars

charged only on a paid claim

  • Everything at the 20% tier
  • Volume-tier rate
  • Eligible for Monitoring Retainer
Guarantee: no recovery, no fee — if a claim is denied and the denial can't be overturned, you owe nothing. This is not a guarantee that any specific claim will be paid: carrier liability and dollar recovery depend on the facts of each shipment. If a submitted shipment isn't filable, we say so within 24 hours, in plain language, at no cost.
Optional Monitoring Retainer: $99–$499/month for accounts with recurring shipment volume — covers proactive damage/shortage monitoring across your full shipment feed and deadline-clock calendaring across every carrier you use, with a reduced 10–15% Contingency Fee.

Proof, as it ships

We don't invent case studies or client names. These slots fill in as real claims resolve, with the customer's permission.

Awaiting first pilot claimFirst anonymized Denied Claim Teardown will appear here once a pilot shipper approves publication.
Awaiting first pilot claimFirst Recovery figure, by claim type, will be published here with the shipper's written permission.
Awaiting pilot cohort completionAggregate pilot-cohort statistics (average cycle time, average recovery rate) will populate after the first cohort completes.

Who this is not for

  • Shippers wanting help with a cargo-insurance claim — that's a different, licensed activity ClaimRoute doesn't perform. This is carrier-liability claims under the Carmack Amendment only.
  • A shipment where the concealed-damage notice window or the bill of lading's filing deadline has already passed — we'll tell you that for free rather than take on a claim we know is unlikely to recover.
  • Anyone wanting a guaranteed recovery number before a claim is even reviewed — nobody can honestly promise that, so we don't.
  • Claims that are already in litigation or arbitration — those stay with your own attorney; we don't provide legal representation.

The hard questions

Are you a public adjuster or insurance claims adjuster?

No. ClaimRoute is neither, and we don't use that terminology to describe ourselves. A Carmack Amendment freight claim is a claim against a common carrier under a bill of lading, not an insurance policy claim — a different regulatory category. See the compliance section below for the full boundary.

Do you negotiate with carriers as our representative?

Yes, under a signed Claims-Handling Authorization — a limited power of attorney you control — we correspond with carrier claims departments on your behalf. If a claim ever proceeds to litigation or formal arbitration, we refer it to an independent, licensed transportation attorney; we don't represent you in court and we don't take a fee on a litigated outcome.

What if our shipment is past the filing deadline?

We check the applicable deadline clock before doing anything else. If the concealed-damage notice window or the bill of lading's filing deadline has already passed, we tell you within 24 hours, at no cost, and explain why it's unlikely to be filable rather than taking your time on a claim with disclosed low odds.

Is this ever an hourly or flat fee?

Never hourly, and no flat per-claim fee as the primary model. You're only charged a Contingency Fee — 25%, 20%, or 15% depending on claim size — when a claim is actually paid. If we don't recover anything, you owe nothing.

What do you need from us to start?

The bill of lading, proof of delivery, damage or shortage photos, invoice or purchase value, the carrier name, the delivery date, and any existing carrier correspondence for one shipment — plus a signed Claims-Handling Authorization before we correspond with a carrier on your behalf.

What if the carrier refuses to deal with a third party?

Most carriers accept a properly authorized third-party claims agent. If a specific carrier insists on dealing with you directly, we draft the full claim packet for you to submit under your own name — you still get the classification, deadline-clock accuracy, and packet quality, just filed in your name.

Our AP or ops team already files claims sometimes — why do we need you?

Ask what percentage got paid, and how long they took. Under the industry's manual baseline, LTL denial rates run 50–60% and claims take an average of 47 days to resolve — mostly from documentation gaps and missed deadlines, not real liability disputes.

Get your free Eligibility Check

Tell us how to reach you and which carrier the shipment moved on. We'll follow up with secure instructions to send the bill of lading, proof of delivery, and photos.

Ops, logistics, or controller contact for this shipment.
We'll reply within one business day with secure intake instructions.
Helps us pull the right deadline-clock rules before we even see the paperwork.

Thanks — we'll follow up by email within one business day with secure intake instructions.

Compliance and scope

ClaimRoute pursues freight claims against common carriers under the Carmack Amendment (49 U.S.C. § 14706) — a federal carrier-liability statute, not an insurance policy claim and not consumer debt. We are not a licensed public adjuster or insurance claims adjuster and don't describe ourselves that way. We correspond with carriers under a signed Claims-Handling Authorization (a limited power of attorney) that you control and can revoke. Any claim proceeding to litigation or formal arbitration is referred to an independent, licensed transportation attorney — we don't represent you in court, and we don't retain a fee on a litigated outcome. Recovery is never guaranteed; this is not legal advice. Full detail is in the compliance-checklist.md document of the ClaimRoute build package, and in the operating blueprint dossier.