Property Damage

MikeJr

MikeJr

Guru
Staff member
Jan 21, 2010
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Thunder Bay, Ontario
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Hi there,

I have a 'situation':

A carrier we contracted caused some damage at a shipping location as follows; damaged a portion of a fence and also rolled over the supports for a hydro pole (back in late December).

Thankfully the hydro pole integrity does not seem to be affected. Usually I try not to get too involved with property damage claims but of course I'm looking out for the best interests of the shipper (which is not to get stuck with the repairs themselves).

I kept the carrier in this case well informed on the day of the damages, and I found that 11 days after this happened they had yet to send a representative to the facility to review the damages (nor get a quote of their own)...

In the end the shipper got an estimate of $850 + tax for the fence repair which I promptly (before the repair was complete) sent to the carrier and advised the work was to be completed next day (unless they wanted to get a quote of their own as soon as possible). I never got a response form the carrier regarding the quotation...

The repair has now been completed (as the fencing was required for security of the premises) and the response I get from the carrier is that they were not given sufficient opportunity to get a quotation themselves and that their insurance company will not honour the claim.

I doubt anyone would put through a claim with insurance for under $1000 when the deductible is likely higher than this amount...

Note that this carrier does have an employee that is a member here and I do not feel at this time it makes sense to 'call them out' because in the past the services rendered were well above average. Also I have no idea if the member here has anything to do with compliance/risk/safety.

Typically carriers in the past have come to bat when there's been property damage (and I've been fortunate when a shipper has damaged trailers in the past too), what are the next best steps for all parties here?

Thank you for your thoughts in this.

Happy Friday, keep well.

Mike
 
My suggestion would be to call them on their insurance company and send everything directly to their insurance broker with the suggestion that you will be going directly to the insurance company as your next step. This should get some action.
 
Hi Mike JR.
I believe the best practice of this carrier is to pay for the repairs. In the long wrong it proves good faith. Especially if you have a good realtionship with the carrier from the past - when you look at the entire picture, its better to keep a healthy relationship between carrier / broker and shipper. This carrier in my 2 cents needs to step up to the plate.
 
Lowmiler is right call insurance company and have them deal with it. Looks like carrier is not being open with you on the fact that insurance company would deny the claim - they probably never bothered calling them.
 
Thanks guys,

In this case I have a 20 page email string with all of our conversations to back up the timeline of what I've done to try and help the carrier through this process.

I dislike involving insurance companies when the claim is under $2000 but yes, if it will encourage a response...

My alternate thought was to contact the MTO as it may not affect the carriers future insurance premium??

Keep well,

Mike
 
Mike,

I had a situation once where one of my drivers was in Laredo and went to a facility where the shipper accused the driver of damaging a fence. They sent us photos posthaste with the trailer in the photo and the damage. The problem in that case was that the damage on the fence did not match the position of the trailer, given the angle of the bend, where the back of the trailer was and fact that there were no tire tracks on the grass. The driver's story corroborated this and when I asked if they had any witnesses, the shipper had none. There were no marks on our trailer also so it was likely that the damage was pre-existing and the shipper was looking for a free fence repair from us dumb Canadians.

In your case, if the shipper paid for the damage on their own and the carrier couldn't get the insurance company to honour the claim, the only thing that can be done is that the shipper will have to either eat it and move on or sue in small claims court. Now, since the carrier also damaged supports to a hydro pole, the question becomes: 1. did the carrier have damage to their trailer and was it fixed? and 2. did anyone contact the local utility service responsible for the pole and report the damage? Were there witnesses and, more importantly, did the driver admit fault (he surely would have realized something was wrong) and what did the carrier do about it at the time of the incident? The latter questions are very important because then it become a matter of proving they did it. If the carrier sustained damage, their safety department would have had to deal with the incident immediately. I knew one driver that we'd get complaints about all the time regarding backing into fences and not knowing how to back up and we had to get rid of him as a result. It happens to carriers, especially if it's a blind-side backup or backing up around a tight corner. The driver would have to be ignoring his surroundings if he didn't notice a hydro pole and fence. I'd check into it more. My gut tells me the shipper will have to eat it unless they can prove the carrier did it for sure.
 
I can appreciate your frustration MikeJr. I have had similar cases where the carrier ignores the situation. It's unfortunate when a broker has to act as a "middleman" in what should be a simple case of property damage by a motor vehicle. I concur that your best course of action is through the carrier's insurance broker.
 
I agree. The carrier should own up to and pay for the damages.

Also, I agree with the statements about going to the insurance company. Not so sure about going to the broker, as they will be standing up for their insured, wanting to keep the contract. I would go directly to the insurance company, ask for a claims manager, and explain that you have been forced to initiate this claim directly with them because the insured has failed to do it themselves.

I have done this several times, it has worked in all but one case so far. I am still working on that case, it is with Aarthick Transport, and I am anticipating a successful outcome soon on that one.

Good luck.
 
Usually when you're talking about a secure compound (and sometimes even if not secured) there is also cameras around recording what's going on. So the actual event may be there.

It's hard to believe that an incident like this would occur and we wouldn't find out about it when the truck is still there. But you never know. Problem is it's he-said, she-said when that happens. Depending on the customer, I may be inclined to write off as goodwill.
 
I'm assuming the shipper is a good customer too...so far everyone has said the carrier is good but...blah blah..

If the carrier isn't being responsive then they're not that good. Good operators will followup promptly and will accept or deny the claim with reasonable explanation. In this case the carrier had notice yet chose to be unresponsive.

I would pay the claim myself so as to protect my customer. Let him know that you're doing this as a courtesy to him even though the carrier is really responsible. For 850 bucks, at least, you will further cement your good relationship with that customer, keeping in mind that everyone is good when there aren't any problems. The really good operators, be it truckers or brokers, shine when there are problems. Don't leave your customer hanging..
 
Update

Hi all,

Thank you so much for your thoughts in this, I do feel we are all on the same page - a small amount of money to keep a long term customer happy is easy to justify (and if this is not settled quickly of course we will just pay it out of pocket).

However, I am disappointed that this particular carrier does not feel the same way. They advised that their insurance company refused the claim as they did not have time to act before the shipper fixed the fence...

I contacted the insurance company directly who advised "I can not set up a claim for you as you are not my client. Please have the shipper contact their insurance company and their insurance company contact us."

My next call was to their insurance broker who responded "Usually, yes a claim should be submitted by the damaged party to their own insurance company who would contact the carriers insurance company. However in this case as damage was done to property and possibly to the trailer we would like all of the information you have and would like to investigate this further with our client". I was pleasantly surprised.

You all had many questions and if I didn't have a huge pile of work here I'd go through them all. The short version:
There are witnesses
There are photos of the damages
The hydro company was possibly not contacted (the pole looks well intact and the support cables too)
The damages were done as the truck was leaving (after closing the doors)
The driver may not have noticed??
The carrier was contacted within 20 minutes of the occurance happening
I do not know what the driver reported after being interviewed by their supervisor
The carrier has not done anything at all (never visited the site, never contacted their own insurance company)...

I'll keep you updated of course as this little soap opera continues...

Have a great weekend.

Keep well,

Mike
 
I'm wading in way late here. I've been through this a million times and here's what I have learned.
1. If the customer is valued, and not a one timer, and he says the carrier did it, so be it.
2. The carrier will not be putting a 1000 dollar claim through his insurance. He's copping out. I am a little guy, my ded is 5000. When I was at the big places, my ded was 50000.
3. The shipper hired you...you need to fix things with the shipper
4. Get a release of liability from the shipper and pay them out, then you chase the carrier. Don't put up with the insurance excuse any longer. You don't want your customer being held hostage while the carrier plays around.

You have covered your tail with the emails, gave them a chance. I agree with FreightBroker 100%. The carrier is showing how good they are with their handling of this. I would say get the reimbursement however you can, then DNU.
 
Agreed,

I heard back from the insurance broker on Friday afternoon after my last posting. He advised that had there been significant damages to the trailer - he would have got a call (the ded is $2500 I believe). He gave me the owners name and advised I should just call him direct as he is a reasonable man and would likely look at the big picture and do what is right. Perhaps his staff has yet to bring this case to his attention and they are trying to ignore it (as we've all seen before)...

I'll let you know how it turns out of course. :cool:

Keep well (and dry),

Mike
 
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Funny you should mention Aarthick Transport. Seems they are good at avoiding responsibility. We have a claim with them as well. It would be interesting to hear what you have gone through with them.

jonny-chicken said:
I have done this several times, it has worked in all but one case so far. I am still working on that case, it is with Aarthick Transport, and I am anticipating a successful outcome soon on that one.
Click to expand...
 
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Update

I suppose it's about time I offered an update on the fence and hydro pole situation (I'm sure some are anxious).

Also, as I've not seen the member log in for some time I suppose it's fair to bring the carrier to light that I'm having this property damage claim problem with. I didn't want to personally attack the member for decisions made by others at their company...

I believe that the person that I was originally dealing with (Jason) is no longer at Byexpress and now I'm dealing with the owner directly.
I received the final invoice from the repair people for the fence (it's $977).

In the end he's only agreeing to $600 of the repair cost despite the instructions by his staff to me that they "did not want to oversee the repairs as were not too extreme"...

I suppose any further time spent on this (small claims, etc...) will only cost in my time greater than the $377 discrepancy. I also suppose that Tam from Byexpress knows this and doesn't really care...

Either way, of course we are going to do what anyone does for a valuable customer - take care of the total costs. Oh, except Byexpress, they wouldn't...

DNU

Keep well,

Mike
 
Mike JR.

Dear sir,

In my books you are truly a gentleman!!!

Why the carrier decided not to pay out the whole bill and only $600.00 is beyond me!!!

We had a similar situation last year when a driver had to blind side in to a yard and caught the gate when he was trying to avoid some parked cars.
The damage was closer to $2000.00 and I am sure we were not the 1st to take out the gate but we had no proof.

Since we were doing the shipment for one of our good freight brokers, we made arrangements to pay the client directly.
As soon as the work was carried out , the consignee sent us a photo and we mailed out the check.

We collected the amount from our Owner OP. ( he had his own policy that we paid for) over 3 months.

This made everyone happy including our owner op, he later said he should have had the car moved and nothing would have occured.
 
Final Update (I hope)!!

Great news!!

Tam has agreed to full payment for this claim (we are still paying the fence company and he's cutting us the difference from our current a/p and the claim amount).

I'm happy to report Byexpress has reviewed the situation and decided to do the ethical thing.

It's a great day (and a Friday to boot).

Keep well,

Mike
 
MikeJr said:
Great news!!

Tam has agreed to full payment for this claim (we are still paying the fence company and he's cutting us the difference from our current a/p and the claim amount).

I'm happy to report Byexpress has reviewed the situation and decided to do the ethical thing.

It's a great day (and a Friday to boot).

Keep well,

Mike
Click to expand...

You know Mike, if all brokers were gentlemen like you, we would accept work from them more often. I had a lot of bad experiences with load brokers who refused to foot the bill for waiting time, etc.

Your customer must be real pleased, and you most likely will have a very long relation with him.

Good for you man!!
 
Good to hear Mike.

I'm not pointing fingers here... but why do drivers always think they can do it by themselves.

I tell our guys all the time... "If you can't see properly... get out of the truck take a look... and if you need a spotter... go in and ask for one."

Every time one of them hits something the story begins with "I thought..."

Anyway, glad it worked out Mike... hope that the customer is satisfied and that your relationship with the carrier remains in tact.

Happy Friday,
 
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