Moving Damage Claim: Two Clocks and One Format Rule

Item 214 on the inventory reads sideboard, marble top. The crew leader writes chipped beside it, initials the line, tears off your copy, and the truck is out of the street in eleven minutes. Something has been recorded. Nothing has been claimed. Those are two different acts under two different parts of the Code of Federal Regulations, and the gap between them is where a great deal of household damage money quietly disappears.

This page is about the second act: the written claim. When it is due, what a communication has to contain before a carrier will treat it as one, and which pieces of paper actually move the number once an adjuster starts applying depreciation to it.

Scope first, because it decides whether any of this reaches you. The rules below govern interstate moves of household goods — the move crossed a state line. A move that begins and ends inside one state is regulated by that state, and its deadlines, forms, and remedies are its own; nothing here transfers. Section text quoted is what the eCFR carried on 22 August 2026, read against the published title 49 issue dated 20 August 2026. One thing to know if you are holding this against an older guide: 49 CFR 370.1 was amended on 19 February 2026, but only to strike obsolete references to water carriers (91 FR 7856). The consumer-facing text of Part 370 is unchanged.

Your clock: delivery day, then nine months, then two years

Three dates, and only the first one is under any real pressure.

Delivery day. 49 CFR 375.503(d) obliges the mover to give you "the opportunity to observe and verify that the same articles are being delivered and the condition of those articles," to give you "the opportunity to note in writing any missing articles and the condition of any damaged or destroyed articles," and — the part people forget to collect — to provide you "with a copy of all such notations." The FMCSA booklet, codified as Appendix A to Part 375, puts the stakes plainly: "if an item is missing or damaged, your ability to recover from the mover for any loss or damage may depend on the notations made on this form." And § 375.701 forbids the delivery receipt or shipping document from carrying "any language purporting to release or discharge" the mover. Signing one therefore releases nothing — but read paragraph (b) before you relax, because it does let the receipt state that the property "was received in apparent good condition except as noted on the shipping documents." That clause is what turns your exceptions from a courtesy into the operative record. The four documents in an interstate move each stop being changeable at a different hour, and the inventory is the last one still open.

Nine months. Here is where I read it wrong the first time, and it is worth saying out loud because it changes where you look. The nine-month deadline is not in Part 370. I searched the whole part and it is not there. What § 370.3(b) says is that a claim must be filed "within the time limits specified in the bill of lading or contract of carriage or transportation" — the regulation points at your contract. The floor under that contract comes from the statute: 49 U.S.C. 14706(e)(1) says a carrier "may not provide by rule, contract, or otherwise, a period of less than 9 months for filing a claim against it under this section." Nine months is a floor a carrier cannot go below, not a figure printed in the claims regulation. The booklet gives the practical version: "You have 9 months from the date of delivery (or in the event of loss for the entire shipment, from the date your shipment should have been delivered) to file your claim." So go and read the terms and conditions on your own bill of lading before you assume nine is your number. Some are longer, and the longer one governs.

Two years. The same sentence goes on to bar any period "of less than 2 years for bringing a civil action against it under this section," and a second sentence says how that period is counted: "from the date the carrier gives a person written notice that the carrier has disallowed any part of the claim specified in the notice." Note what starts it, and how narrowly. A written disallowance, running only as to the part of the claim the notice actually names. Not delivery, not filing, not silence.

One variant catches people whose closing slipped. If the shipment went into storage-in-transit and then converted to permanent storage, § 375.609(b) requires written notice of the conversion date and of "the existence of a nine-month period after the date of conversion to permanent storage when the individual shipper may file claims against you for loss or damage occurring to the goods in transit or during the storage-in-transit period." Read that quoted phrase closely: the nine months run from the date of conversion, not from the day the notice reaches you. Paragraphs (c) and (d) require the mover to send it at least 10 days before the storage period expires, by fax, email, overnight courier, or certified mail — so the date that starts your clock can be sitting unopened in an envelope or a spam folder. Where the mover's liability ends after that is the whole argument for and against SIT.

The carrier's clock: 30 days, 120 days, then every 60

The mover's obligations run from receipt of a proper claim, which is one more reason format matters — a communication that does not qualify never starts them.

Two things fall out of that table that are easy to miss.

The acknowledgement is meant to be useful, not a courtesy. Section 370.5(a) requires the carrier to "indicate in its acknowledgment to the claimant what, if any, additional documentary evidence or other pertinent information may be required by it further to process the claim as its preliminary examination of the claim, as filed, may have revealed." If yours arrives as a one-line receipt with no document request, that silence is worth a reply asking for the list in writing. And because 370.5(b) requires the date of receipt to appear in the acknowledgement, one that carries no date is missing the single field that fixes when the 120 days end.

The other is the settlement offer. A firm written compromise offer discharges the 120-day duty under 370.9(a), so the carrier has complied. But under 14706(e)(2)(A) it is not a disallowance, and it does not start your two-year window. A carrier can offer, you can decline, and the offer can sit there without either clock advancing. If you want the two-year period running, what you need is a written disallowance with reasons — and under (e)(2)(B), a letter from the carrier's insurer only counts if it disallows in writing, gives reasons, and says the insurer is acting on the carrier's behalf.

What makes a communication a claim

This is the part that quietly voids informal complaints, and the regulation states it twice — once as what counts, once as what does not.

Section 370.3(b) sets three elements. A written communication, filed with a proper carrier within the contract's time limits, that is:

(1) Containing facts sufficient to identify the baggage or shipment (or shipments) of property, (2) Asserting liability for alleged loss, damage, injury, or delay, and (3) Making claim for the payment of a specified or determinable amount of money

Meet those and the communication "shall be considered as sufficient compliance with the provisions for filing claims embraced in the bill of lading or other contract of carriage" — subject to one proviso carried in the same sentence, "That procedures are established to ensure reasonable carrier access to supporting documents." There is no prescribed form anywhere in Part 370. A mover may send you its own form and it is usually easier to use it, but the regulation defines a claim by content, and a letter carrying all three elements is one.

Then § 370.3(c), the sentence to read twice:

Bad order reports, appraisal reports of damage, notations of shortage or damage, or both, on freight bills, delivery receipts, or other documents, or inspection reports issued by carriers or their inspection agencies, whether the extent of loss or damage is indicated in dollars and cents or otherwise, shall, standing alone, not be considered by carriers as sufficient to comply with the minimum claim filing requirements specified in paragraph (b) of this section.

Hold that against what happened at your kerb. The crew leader's notation on the inventory is a notation of damage on a document. A mover's inspector visiting your living room and writing up the sideboard is an inspection report issued by a carrier's inspection agency. Neither is a claim. Both can be true, both can be sitting in the mover's file, and nine months can still run out around them.

The third element is where self-written claims fail most often. Section 370.3(d) deals with claims "for an uncertain amount, such as '$100 more or less'": the carrier must still investigate and determine the condition of the shipment, but "shall not, however, voluntarily pay a claim under such circumstances unless and until a formal claim in writing for a specified or determinable amount of money shall have been filed in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (b) of this section." Determinable is doing real work in that phrase. A repair quotation you have not received yet can still be stated as determinable, provided you say how the figure will be fixed and by whom. "Whatever you think is fair" cannot. Neither can a number you never wrote down.

What that number is capped at is a separate question, settled months before delivery day by which valuation box you initialled. A flawlessly drafted claim on a released-value shipment still pays by the pound.

Evidence, ranked by what survives the valuation argument

Sort what you have by the question it answers, because that is the order an adjuster asks them in. Paper that answers the third question is much scarcer than paper that answers the first, and households tend to over-invest in the first.

Did the damage happen in transit? The inventory answers this. Origin entries record condition before loading; delivery notations record it after. The pair is the comparison, which is why § 375.503(c) putting a signed copy in your hands "before or at the time of loading" matters as much as the delivery-day copy does. Photographs help, and photographs taken while the crew is still in the room help more, because they are dated by the presence of the crew.

What was the item? Section 370.7(b) lists what a carrier may require "when a necessary part of an investigation": the bill of lading, evidence of the freight charges, and "either the invoice, a copy of the invoice, or an exact copy thereof or any extract made therefrom, certified by the claimant to be true and correct with respect to the property and value involved in the claim; or certification of prices or values, with trade or other discounts, allowance, or deductions, of any nature whatsoever and the terms thereof, or depreciation reflected thereon." Depreciation is named there, in the evidence paragraph, before it appears in the settlement paragraph. Where the goods were never invoiced to you, or the invoice shows no price, the same paragraph says the carrier "shall, before voluntarily paying a claim, require the claimant to establish the destination value in the quantity, shipped, transported, or involved." Household goods land in that second bucket almost every time. Nobody keeps the 2014 receipt for a sideboard. So establishing destination value falls to you, by some other route — a current listing for the same model, a written appraisal, a photograph of the maker's mark.

What is it worth today? Claims are won and lost here, and the governing sentence is § 370.9(b):

When settling a claim for loss or damage, a household goods motor carrier as defined in § 375.103 of this subchapter shall use the replacement costs of the lost or damaged item as a base to apply a depreciation factor to arrive at the current actual value of the lost or damaged item.

Two inputs, and you can put evidence behind both. Replacement cost is the base: a current price for a like item, printed and dated, not a recollection of what you paid. Depreciation is the multiplier, and the regulation names no table, no schedule, and no rate. It says "a depreciation factor," which means the factor is an assertion until somebody supports it. What pushes it down is evidence of age and condition — purchase date, service records, the origin inventory line showing no pre-existing wear. For a repairable item, a written repair quotation is often the single strongest document in the packet, because it replaces the depreciation argument altogether with an invoice.

Worth raising if you carried Full Value Protection: the booklet defines that option as one where "your mover will process your loss and damage claim by replacing or repairing the item to restore its original like, kind, and quality," which is a different promise from a depreciated current actual value. If an FVP settlement arrives with a depreciation line on it, those two texts are the ones to set side by side in your reply. I read public documents rather than adjust claims, and I have not seen how that tension gets resolved in practice — but the citations are § 370.9(b) and Appendix A, and they are the right two to make somebody address in writing.

If a whole carton or the whole shipment is gone, § 370.7(c) tells you in advance what will be asked for: a "certified statement in writing that the property for which the claim is filed has not been received from any other source." Write it before it is requested and the investigation moves a fortnight faster.

The packet, item by item

What goes into one envelope or one PDF, sent by a method that produces a delivery record:

1. A cover letter carrying the three § 370.3(b) elements in its first paragraph — shipment identification (bill of lading number, any registration number, origin and destination, delivery date), an explicit statement that you hold the carrier liable, and a total in dollars.
2. An itemised schedule: inventory number, description, what happened, amount claimed, and how each amount was arrived at.
3. A copy of the bill of lading, with the estimate and inventory that § 375.505(b)(15) makes integral parts of it.
4. Every inventory page — origin condition entries and delivery notations both, including the copy of the notations that § 375.503(d) required the mover to hand you.
5. The delivery receipt as signed, with the exceptions visible on it.
6. The valuation statement showing which liability level the shipment travelled under.
7. The weight ticket or tickets.
8. The high-value or extraordinary-value listing, if you filed one.
9. Per item: dated photographs, a current replacement price with its source and date, evidence of age or purchase, and a written repair estimate wherever repair is possible.
10. A certified statement of non-receipt for any package missing in full (§ 370.7(c)).
11. Proof of the date and manner of sending, since both of the carrier's deadlines run from receipt and § 370.5(b) requires the carrier to record that date on the face of the claim.

Keep the whole packet yourself. Nothing in Part 370 obliges a carrier to give back what you send it; § 370.7(b) requires only that supporting documents "are retained by the carriers for possible FMCSA inspection."

Sections verified against the eCFR on 22 August 2026, title 49 issue dated 20 August 2026. Statutory text read the same day in the 2024 edition of the United States Code on govinfo, and checked word for word against the current text at the Legal Information Institute; § 14706(e) is identical in both. This is one reader's reading of public documents — no licence to move, broker, advise, or adjust stands behind it, no carrier pays me, and nobody here has seen your paperwork. Where the regulation and this page disagree, the regulation is right and this page is out of date.