Utilizing Claims Data to Save Money

When most logistics managers think of cargo claims, they think of the money they can recover from the carrier who was liable for damaging or losing their cargo. And while the most obvious reason to have a cargo claims program is to recover money for the loss or damage, ECIB takes it a step further. ECIB’s Claims Management programs not only increase monetary carrier recoveries, they also provide valuable tracked data that highlights actionable improvement opportunities throughout the supply chain.

Some of the valuable shipment information and item-level data insights include the following:

• Ship date 
• Shipper
• Consignee
• Claim date
• Bill of lading 

These data insights provide information about which locations are reporting the most cargo claims, and which are not reporting any. These reports bring up the following questions:

• Which products get damaged the most, and on which transit lanes? 
• How do the various carriers perform against one another when it comes to claims ratio?
• What are the leading causes of claim denials? 

All of these insights provide a clear and objective picture in a supply chain. A picture that will help decision making when it comes to improvements such as shipping/receiving dock training, carrier or lane selection, and packaging enhancements.

In addition, ECIB’s Claims Management solution offers the ability to calculate a true “claim ratio,” which is a combination of cargo claim data and shipment data. This allows cargo claim count to be considered against shipment volume, and expressed as a single percentage number that can be compared across carriers with different volumes of an organization’s freight spend. The cargo claim ratio is a key performance indicator that can help an organization not only dial in their logistics operations, but also maximize their risk management portfolios. 

If you are interested in maximizing cargo claim recoveries and improving supply chain performance, ECIB can help. Reach out to our cargo claim experts today to learn more about the benefits of claims data and analytics.

The Claim Ratio - a powerful and actionable KPI that helps identify trends when it comes to freight damages and losses: Dashboards and scorecards using this data can be a powerful tool for carrier business reviews.