Royal Mail, DHL Express and Canada Post Damaged Parcel Claims Compared

US carrier claims get most of the attention online, but sellers shipping from the UK, Canada or across borders with DHL Express face rules that are different in ways that matter: who is allowed to claim, what date the clock starts from, whether the carrier pays your cost or your sale price, and which items it will not pay for at all.

This guide lines the three carriers up on one table, then walks through the evidence each one asks for and the record that makes the difference in a cross-border B2B shipment. Every rule below was checked on the carrier's own pages in October 2026.

What a Royal Mail, DHL or Canada Post claims reviewer checks

A damage claims reviewer at any of the three carriers is testing four things: that you are the right claimant, that you are inside the deadline, that the item had the value you claim, and that the damage happened in their network rather than before it. The first three are paperwork. The fourth is the one that decides close claims.

Each carrier writes the fourth test into its rules. Royal Mail's compensation policy for damage excludes pre-existing damage, refuses items that were not packed to survive normal handling in the post, and asks for evidence that the damage is consistent with damage to the outer packaging or internal wrappings. DHL Express's terms of carriage treat a shipment with defective or inadequate packaging as unacceptable. Canada Post's non-insurable contents list refuses damage to electronics unless they were in approved packaging.

In every case, the buyer's photos show what arrived. Only your own record shows what left.

Royal Mail, DHL Express and Canada Post damage claim rules compared

Sources: Royal Mail compensation policy for damage and part loss, Royal Mail international compensation, Royal Mail Claims Centre, DHL Express terms and conditions of carriage (UK), DHL Express Canada claim form, Canada Post: damaged packages and Canada Post non-insurable contents. Checked October 2026; DHL's figures vary by origin country, so read the version for the country your shipment left from.

Royal Mail: compensation, deadlines and proof of value

Royal Mail pays for damage only when the claimant proves posting, proves value, and shows the damage is consistent with what happened to the packaging. Its Claims Centre says your claim "will be assessed solely on the evidence you provide", and asks you to have digital proof of posting and proof of value ready before you start.

Proof of posting can be a certificate of posting, a Horizon or Collect+ certificate, Click & Drop proof of posting stamped at a Post Office or Royal Mail Customer Service Point, a collection notification email, or the item's own packaging showing postage paid. For Signed For and Special Delivery, the automatic certificate of posting is required as well as the item and packaging.

Proof of value is where business senders get caught out. Royal Mail compensates "actual loss", and its own example is explicit: a shop that bought jeans for £15 and sold them for £25 can claim £15. Keep supplier invoices or manufacturing cost records for the stock you ship, not just the customer's order confirmation. Examples Royal Mail lists include receipts, bank statements, invoices, catalogue prices, PayPal records, auctioneer valuations and repair costs.

Packaging must be kept. Royal Mail says claimants must retain all the packaging and contents of damaged items because it may inspect them, and compensation may not be paid if they are not retained. Its packing rules also matter: breakable items need a strong container with enough packing material and "FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE" in capitals above the address, and items that may bend need a rigid container marked "DO NOT BEND".

DHL Express: damage claim window and documents

DHL Express requires claims in writing within 30 days of the date it accepted the shipment, and allows one claim per shipment, according to its terms of carriage. Some country operations set tighter internal windows. The DHL Express Canada claim form, for example, says damage on insured shipments must be reported within 7 calendar days of delivery, other claims within 30 days of pickup, and damaged shipments worth €1,000 or more need an inspection.

The documents DHL Express Canada lists are a good baseline for any origin:

• Photographs of the damaged items and the packaging, both inner and outer
• An inspection report for damaged shipments of €1,000 or more, if available
• A copy of the original purchase invoice (not your selling invoice)
• A repair invoice if the item can be repaired

DHL Express's own claim guidance (published on its Indonesia site) goes a step further. It tells the receiver to photograph the box exterior, the interior and how it was packed, and to get the shipper's original pictures of the box from before it was sent, because comparing before and after helps identify how the damage happened. It also asks for pictures to be clearly labelled as shipper's or recipient's. That is DHL describing, in its own words, the value of a pack-out record.

DHL's liability without insurance is low and weight-based: in the UK terms, 26 Special Drawing Rights per kilogram for air (about US$35/kg) and 8.33 SDR per kilogram for cross-border road (about US$11/kg). A 2 kg parcel of electronics is covered for a fraction of its value unless you declared value and bought insurance. The process usually starts with a trace through customer service, and the formal claim form follows once the trace is complete.

Canada Post: claim deadlines, photos and exclusions

Canada Post accepts damage claims only from the sender, only for trackable services, and only within 90 days of shipping for domestic parcels or 6 months for US and international parcels, according to its damaged packages page.

To start an investigation, the sender needs the tracking number, sender and receiver details, the amount of additional insurance bought, a description of the contents and the last date the sender spoke to the receiver. Canada Post may later ask for proof of payment, proof of the item's value and verification of insurance. It contacts the receiver for pictures and may ask for the item to be shipped in for inspection.

Compensation is the lowest of the item's value, the insurance purchased, or the coverage included with the service, and Canada Post says many services include base coverage of CA$100.

The exclusions deserve a careful read before you ship anything breakable. Canada Post's non-insurable contents list says it has no liability for damage to fragile items, naming ceramics, glass, porcelain, mirrors, crystal, pottery and china, as well as perishables. For electronics, it has no liability for damage unless the item was in the manufacturer's original undamaged packaging, packaging that meets Canada Post's guidelines, or Canada Post's own electronics packaging. If a claim turns on that point, a photo of the packaging taken at the bench is the only thing that settles it.

Pack-out proof for cross-border B2B shipments

For a business shipping cartons or pallets across borders, pack-out proof is a short record made at dispatch that ties the goods, their packaging and their labels to the shipment reference before the carrier takes them. It matters more in B2B than in parcel e-commerce for three reasons.

First, the values are higher and the default limits are per kilogram, so declared value and insurance are common, and insurers ask the same before-and-after question carriers do. Second, the consignee is a business that may not report damage on the day, and by the time it does, the carrier's window is short. Third, DHL's terms make the shipper warrant that the shipment was prepared in secure premises by reliable persons and protected against interference during preparation. A dated record of the pack-out is how you show that.

For the receiving side of the same problem, see warehouse receiving and freight damage, and for B2B orders where the customer should confirm the goods before they leave, see photo approval before shipping.

How to file, step by step

Copy-ready claim text

How PallasMark handles this

PallasMark turns the pack-out into a sealed record tied to the order or shipment, captured on the phones your team already uses, with nothing to install at the bench.

• Bound to the right reference from the first frame. Scan the barcode on the picking slip or label and the app opens that order. For B2B shipments and pallets, warehouse records for packing, loading and dispatch are tied to a shipment, pallet or lot reference, a facility and, for 3PLs, a client brand, with custom fields such as PO or seal number.
• Sealed so the before-and-after comparison holds. Each file gets a SHA-256 fingerprint and a public verification page that re-checks it on the spot. Photos carry the company name, order number and upload time (UTC) inside the image. That is the "shipper's picture" DHL asks for, with proof it has not been edited since. More in tamper-proof video.
• Shared with the one party who needs it. Send a single record to the carrier, a client brand, a supplier or your customer through a link with an expiry date, an optional PIN and download settings, revocable at any time. They see that record, not the rest of your warehouse.
• One document for the claim. For store orders, the evidence PDF brings together four stills from each video, the photos, fingerprints, and the carrier and tracking number read from your store, ready to attach to the claim you file.
• B2B customers can approve before dispatch. Send the sealed recording to the customer first; they approve or report an issue from a link with no account, in seven languages. See B2B evidence.

For the full picture, see carrier and insurance claims and warehouse proof.

For US carriers, read UPS damage claim photo requirements and FedEx damage claim photos; for parcels insured through Shippo, Sendcloud or Catawiki, see XCover shipping protection claims. Every carrier's rules are collected in the shipping damage claims by carrier hub.