BICO Transportation: You Filed a Claim and Now What?

We had the privilege to pick the brains of two truck brokers and a dock worker from two of the biggest trucking companies around, and you’re not going to like it.

Because they don’t like you…

They need you, as all companies need customers, but they don’t necessarily like you.

They blame YOU, the customer, for your shipments getting broken.

As one of the gentlemen told us, “If customers really knew how their stuff was handled; they would crate everything, because crating shipments is the only way to guarantee that nothing will get broken”.

At the end of this article BICO will give you their thoughts on this whole thing...

One of the freight brokers shared a story that helps shed light on part of the problem, and he knew it was a problem, and that’s why he shared the information.

There was a large box on a pallet, shipping from the East Coast to the West Coast. It took three trucking companies to get it from “Point A” to “Point B” (a very common scenario).

That also means that the item was handled a lot of times to accomplish the trip across the US (again a very common scenario).

Meaning…

The box is picked up by a truck at the customer’s location
Unloaded at the terminal that Truck 1 is housed at, and placed on the dock
It gets moved around the dock a few times
The box is loaded onto Truck 1 and driven a thousand miles (give or take)
Unloaded at the terminal that Truck 2 is housed at, and placed on the dock
It gets moved around the dock a few times
The box is loaded onto Truck 2 and driven a thousand miles (give or take)
Unloaded at the terminal that Truck 3 is housed at, and placed on the dock
It gets moved around the dock a few times
The box is loaded onto Truck 3 and driven a thousand miles (give or take)
Unloaded at the final terminal, and placed on the dock
It gets moved around the dock a few times
The box is loaded onto a truck to be dropped off at the customer’s location
It is unloaded at the customer’s facility

Now that we got that…let’s get back to the story…

The customer received their big box still strapped to the pallet, but they noticed two forklift blade holes through the side of the box. They note it on the Bill of Lading and refuse the shipment.

The freight broker gets a call about the damage, and he starts his investigation into what happened. Two months go by and he determines that it was his company’s fault. So he walks the information across the hall to the claims department. They don’t want him there, and tell him so. The freight broker sends the information through the company’s internal messaging system, and the claims department opens their own investigation. Two months later, the claims department is willing to issue payment. Six weeks later the payment is mailed to the customer.

If you were counting…

It took five and a half months for the customer to get paid for damages caused by the trucking company.

That’s just one story.

As we sat and talked with these three employees...

That scenario is 100% real, but the scary part is that it seems to be a common occurrence (at least within the two big outfits that we were talking with).

BICO’s thoughts…

If your shipping with the big guys (and sometimes you have to), please follow their advice and take whatever means necessary to ensure that your shipment arrives as intended; even if that means spending the time and materials to build a crate.

Better yet…

Ship with BICO Transportation because we don’t treat you as a number; we treat you like family (the ones who like each other). We take care of your cargo, and it always arrives as it should.