How to Fill Out a Moving Company Damage Claim Form

To fill out a moving company damage claim form, list each damaged or missing item by its inventory tag number, describe the specific damage in plain terms, state a firm dollar amount you are claiming, attach photos and receipts, and submit the completed form in writing to the carrier within nine months of delivery. The form itself is short. What decides whether you get paid is the evidence you attach to it and the valuation coverage you selected before the move.¹

Build Your Evidence at Delivery

The claim form is a summary of proof you gather earlier. When the movers unload, walk the shipment with the driver and check each carton and piece of furniture against the inventory sheet from pickup. Write every scratch, dent, crushed carton, or missing tag number directly onto the delivery inventory before you sign it. A notation made in real time and acknowledged by the carrier’s own driver is the strongest evidence you can produce.

If cartons are still sealed and you cannot see inside, write “subject to further inspection” next to those items. That phrase does not carry independent legal force, but it puts the carrier on notice that you have not accepted the contents as intact. Signing a clean delivery receipt does not extinguish your right to file later, but it hands the carrier an argument that the damage happened after the crew left.

Photograph everything before you move it. Shoot the damaged item, the packaging around it, and any inventory stickers still attached. Pre-move photos showing the same item in good condition are the single most persuasive comparison you can offer a claims adjuster. Damage you discover after unpacking still counts, but file quickly. Delay makes it easier for the carrier to argue something else caused the problem.

One important limit: writing damage notations on the delivery receipt or freight bill does not count as a filed claim on its own.² Those notations protect your evidence. You still have to submit the actual claim form.

What Goes on the Form

Most carriers issue their claim form through a customer service department or an online portal, and some route claims to a third-party administrator. The information the form asks for comes from your Bill of Lading, which is both the receipt for your goods and the transportation contract.³

Expect to provide:

Your shipment or job number, pickup date, and delivery date.
The inventory tag number for each damaged or missing item. Those numbers tie back to the descriptive inventory the crew made during packing.
A specific description of the damage for each item. “Dining table leg snapped off,” “TV screen cracked across center,” or “box 47 missing entirely” tells the adjuster what happened. “Damaged” or “broken” slows the review because no one can tell what to look at.
The original purchase price of the item.
The amount you are claiming, stated as a firm number.

Federal regulations require a valid claim to identify the shipment, assert that the carrier is responsible, and demand payment of a specific dollar amount.² A claim that says “approximately $500, more or less” is not a valid claim. Pin down a number for each item and a total for the whole form.

Attach your photographs, any repair estimates you have gathered, and receipts showing what you originally paid. If the damaged piece is repairable, include a written estimate from a repair shop. If it is a total loss, include documentation of comparable replacement cost. The more the adjuster can verify without contacting you again, the faster the file moves.

Your Valuation Coverage Caps What You Can Recover

Before your move began, the carrier offered two valuation options, and the one printed on your Bill of Lading controls what any claim can pay. Check it before you fill in the dollar amounts, because it defines what is realistic.

Released Value is the no-cost default. Liability is capped at 60 cents per pound per item. A 25-pound television that cost $800 pays $15 under this coverage. This is not a typo, and it is the reason most disappointed claimants are disappointed.⁴

Full Value Protection costs extra and may carry a deductible. Under this coverage, the carrier is responsible for the replacement value of lost or damaged goods and can choose to repair the item, replace it with a similar one, or pay the current market value.⁴

Even under Full Value Protection, the carrier can limit its responsibility for items of “extraordinary value,” meaning anything worth more than $100 per pound. Jewelry, antiques, fine art, and small electronics commonly cross that threshold. If you listed those items on a high-value inventory form before the move, full coverage still applies. If you did not, the carrier’s liability for those specific items drops to $100 per pound.⁵ This is one of the most common reasons a claim pays less than the shipper expected. There is no way to upgrade valuation coverage after the move.

Deadlines You Have to Meet

Federal law sets a floor: a carrier cannot give you fewer than nine months from the delivery date to file a written claim.¹ For a shipment that never arrived, the clock runs from the date it should have been delivered. Your contract may give you more time; it cannot give you less. Miss the window and you almost always lose the right to any compensation, no matter how obvious the damage is.

Filing sooner helps for reasons beyond the deadline. Photos are easier to match to specific items, memories are sharper, and the carrier has less room to argue the damage happened somewhere else. Claims filed within a few weeks of delivery move faster and settle at higher rates than claims filed at month eight.

A separate deadline applies if the carrier denies your claim and you decide to sue. You have at least two years from the date of the carrier’s written denial to file suit.¹ That two-year clock starts on the denial letter, not on delivery.

How to Submit the Form So Filing Is Provable

Send the claim in a way that creates proof of delivery. Certified mail with a return receipt gives you a signed record showing exactly when the carrier received your paperwork, which ends any later argument about whether you filed on time.

If the carrier uses an online portal, save the confirmation number, screenshot the submission page, and keep the automated email acknowledgment. If the portal generates no confirmation, follow up with an email to the claims department restating the date you submitted and what you included. That email is your paper trail.

Keep a complete copy of everything you send: the form, every photograph, every receipt, every estimate. If the carrier tells you months later that a document is missing, you can resend it the same day instead of scrambling to reconstruct your file while the nine-month deadline runs out.

What Happens After You File

The carrier must acknowledge your claim in writing within 30 days.⁶ From receipt of the claim, it then has 120 days to pay, deny, or make a firm settlement offer. If it needs longer, it must send a written status update explaining the delay and continue updating you every 60 days until the claim is resolved.⁷ A carrier that simply goes silent is violating federal regulations.

The carrier may send an adjuster to inspect the damaged items at your home. Do not throw anything away before that inspection, however useless it looks. Once an item is gone, the carrier will argue it cannot verify the damage and can deny that portion of the claim.

When the settlement offer arrives in writing, it will break down the amount for each item and explain any reductions or denials. If you accept, you sign a release and the carrier pays. Read the release carefully: it typically closes out the entire shipment, and you generally cannot come back later with more items.

What “Actual Loss” Does Not Include

Interstate household goods carriers are liable under the Carmack Amendment for the “actual loss or injury” to your property while it is in their possession.¹ “Actual loss” means the value of the damaged property. It does not include punitive damages, emotional distress, or compensation for the time you spend on the claim. Grandmother’s irreplaceable china is worth the market value of comparable china, not the sentimental loss. Setting a claim amount that reflects this boundary keeps the file moving; padding it invites reductions and delay.

If You Disagree With the Settlement

Arbitration

Every interstate household goods carrier must offer an arbitration program for disputes about lost or damaged property. Participation is required of the carrier. If your claim is $10,000 or less and you request arbitration, the carrier is bound by the result. Above $10,000, the carrier is only bound if it agrees.⁸

The arbitrator must decide within 60 days. You cannot be charged more than half the cost of the proceeding, and the arbitrator can reassign costs in the final decision.⁹ The carrier must have told you about the program before the move; if it never did, that itself is a violation. Arbitration is voluntary for you, so you can skip it and go straight to court instead.

Court and FMCSA Complaints

For smaller claims, small claims court is a practical route. Jurisdictional limits vary by state and generally fall between $5,000 and $20,000. The Carmack Amendment gives you a federal right to sue, and you have at least two years from the written denial to file.¹

If the carrier is ignoring the acknowledgment or response deadlines, refusing to process your claim, or otherwise breaking household goods rules, file a complaint with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration through the National Consumer Complaint Database or by calling 1-888-DOT-SAFT (1-888-368-7238).¹⁰ FMCSA does not resolve individual damage claims or pay you money, but it investigates carriers, and complaint patterns can drive enforcement action. Have your Bill of Lading, estimate, and inventory pages ready before you start.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14706 – Liability of Carriers Under Receipts and Bills of Lading
2
eCFR. 49 CFR 370.3 – Filing of Claims
3
eCFR. 49 CFR 375.505 – Must I Write Up a Bill of Lading
4
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Liability and Protection
5
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 375 – Transportation of Household Goods in Interstate Commerce
6
eCFR. 49 CFR 370.5 – Acknowledgment of Claims
7
eCFR. 49 CFR 370.9 – Disposition of Claims
8
eCFR. 49 CFR 375.211 – Arbitration Program Requirements
9
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Arbitration Program – What Household Goods Movers Must Do
10
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. File a Moving Fraud Complaint