Survey Finds 40% of Logistics and Transport Providers Unfairly at Fault

A national survey of logistics and transportation companies finds that nearly 4-in-10 have been asked to pay for container/trailer damage when not at fault and nearly one-third paid more than $500 per incident.

• 39% asked to pay for container/trailer damage even though they did not cause the damage;
• 31% paid more than $500 per incident;
• 61% said they paid because they didn’t have any documentation to prove they were not at fault;
• PEIR Mobile estimates U.S. annual damaged shipping costs at $1.8 billion.

“Shipping damage fees can have a significant impact on a company and raise levels of frustration when you can’t prove that you were not responsible for the damage along the delivery chain,” said Tom Burke, CEO of TCompanies, parent company of PEIRmobile. “Each year within the U.S., there are approximately 37.5 million containers and trailers transporting goods through numerous interchange points on each trip.  We estimate that 25% of those containers and trailers – or 9.4 million — are damaged.  At a conservative estimate of just $200 in damages per incident, the annual cost would exceed $1.8 billion in the US alone.”

The survey was conducted during the month of October 2018 and asked:

1. On average, how many times per month are you moving a container/trailer to an interchange point?

None   22.3%

1-10     18.2%

11-25     9.5%

26-50     9.5%

51+     40.5%

2. In the past year, have you been asked to pay for container/trailer damage that you were not responsible for?                   

Yes      38.8%

No       61.2%

3. On average, how many times per month have you been asked to pay for container/trailer damage that you were not responsible for:                       

less than once a month                        76.6%

2-5 times a month                   15.2%

6-10 times a month                   4.8%

more than ten times a month     3.4%

4. On average for each occurrence, how much did you have to pay for damages (even when not at fault)?            

$0-100                         47.9%

$100-250                       9.0%

$250-500                     11.8%

$500-750                       4.9%

$750-1000                   10.4%

$1000-1500                   6.2%

$1500-2000                   2.1%

Greater than $2000       7.6%

5. Did you have to pay because:                    

You don’t have any documentation to prove you didn’t do it 61.0%

Can’t find the documentation                                                   2.9%

The document is incomplete                                                   18.4%

The document is hard to interpret/understand                                   17.6%

The PEIR (Photographic Equipment Interchange Receipt) app documents the condition of containers and trailers at each interchange point. Being able to prove what state a container or trailer was in at a given time and place makes it easy to show who caused damage, and protect companies from paying for damage they didn’t cause.

“The idea for PEIR came to me shortly after selling the intermodal trucking company that we owned for ten years,” said Burke.  “For that entire time, I felt the monetary pain associated with being forced to pay for the repair of equipment that we received in interchange and did not damage, but we couldn’t prove it. At one point, it took 2 ½ full time employees to research and handle all these damage claims, which was another cost that ate away at our bottom line.”

 

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