If you are leaving the Army on retirement or early release,

or simply making a PCS or local mover in and out of

Government quarters, here are a few tips that will make

filing a household goods loss/damage claim easier and

faster.

First, today, right now, get yourself some film or a video

tape and crank up the old camera. Take pictures of your

most valuable items, china, schrank, painting, porcelain,

Hummel collections, stereo components, or anything else of

high value. These photos should be of good quality. They

will be known as the "before" pictures. If you are a good

photographer with confidence in your ability but short on

cash, you may want to wait to see how the damage is at

delivery before you get the pictures developed. However, I

recommend you get the pictures developed before you move,

and safeguard them with your most important papers. Do not

allow them to be packed with the shipment. Once your goods

are delivered to your new home, have your camera ready

again and take pictures of any damaged goods. These are

the "after" pictures. With the use of "before" and "after"

pictures, you can easily establish what you shipped and the

condition it was in at origin and delivery.

Second, we strongly recommend against paying cash for big

dollar items. Checks, credit card charge slips, and credit

agreements all provide a better paper trail to establish

what you had and how much it cost. If you do pay cash, get

in the habit of keeping receipts on all major purchases.

Again, any receipts, charge slips and warranty documents

should go with your most important papers, not with

household goods. If you have purchased items in this area,

but have not kept receipts, go back to the store and see if

they have sales records that can be copied to provide you a

record of your transactions with them. If you used a

check, run through your canceled checks before you throw

them away and this may help you find a record to prove the

purchase date and price. If both of these efforts are

fruitless, see if the sales clerk who sold you the item is

still there. He/she may be willing to write out a note on

store letterhead indicating what was sold and when. It is

much easier to make these efforts now before things become

hectic.

When you file your claim, submit copies of the receipts to

establish date of purchase and price paid high dollar

items. Do not put a note in the file indicating that you

have receipts and they are available on request. Include

copies of the receipts in the claims packet when you submit

it.

Keep a briefcase for your important papers. Make sure the

movers cannot inadvertently pack this item when they come.

Keep it along with any small easily pilferable items like

jewelry, wallets, purses, coins, cash, and cameras in the

trunk of your car while the packing and loading of your

goods takes place. If you did not keep receipts or if you

were unable to get sales slips, put the operator’s manuals,

warranty information cards, previous repair clips or any

other paperwork relating to the item in the briefcase, In

this way, you will be able to establish the make and model

of the stereo or other item if it is lost or stolen.

In most cases, the packers pack but the long-haul driver

makes out the inventory and puts stickers on the

containers. Check the inventory as the line haul driver is

writing up your shipment and putting the stickers on the

items. Particularly, on furniture and appliances, if

he/she is writing the abbreviations for scratched (SC),

chipped (CH), dented (D), marred (M), loose (L), soiled

(SO), worn (W), or broken (BR) on items that you consider

brand new or even close to new, make your objections known

and insist that your disagreements be noted as such on the

bottom of each page of inventory. If it becomes a heated

issue, call your transportation office and ask them to send

an inspector out to arbitrate or at least make some notes.

At delivery, although this is always a hectic time, try to

visually inspect the furniture, stereo and appliances that

are not boxed or crated and use the front side of the DD

Form 1840 (pink in color) to note as much damage as you can

as things are brought off of the truck. While you can list

things on the reverse of the 1840 later, when items are

noted at delivery, the Government is more likely to recover

from the carrier for your damage and it is easier to grade

the carrier performance for future contracts. If by chance

you exceed the 70 day limit for submitting DD Form 1840/R

form to the Claims Office with your later discovered

damage, you can still be covered and paid for the damaged

items that were noted on the front of the form, since the

carriers gets a copy of that document when he/she completes

the delivery.

If your goods are going into a self-storage mode because of

lack of space in your new quarters, you must still complete

a damage assessment before the 70 days expire. You must

make every effort to inspect and list the damage even if

your goods stay in a storage bin, garage or cellar for an

extended period. Once your goods are out of Government

sponsored shipment or storage, you must complete the DD

Form 1840/R and get it into the claims office within 70

days.

If you sustain extraordinary damage at delivery, don’t

hesitate to call the supporting Transportation or Claims

Office and ask if someone can come out and inspect the

damage. Although most Claims Offices are not staffed for

daily inspections, when the right circumstance arrives, we

will attempt to make every effort to come out and confirm

the damage as well as take photographs if necessary. But

take your own pictures to be on the safe side. Pictures

taken by the Transportation Office inspectors are not

normally made available to the Claims Office or to you, the

claimant. They are used to rate the carrier and are sent

to the office where that action is performed. If you have

damage to furniture items, stereo equipment, TVs, or other

electronic devices, you will need an estimate of what it

will cost to repair them. You must get a repair firm to

look at the item(s) and write a detailed description of the

damages in order for the claims adjudicator to determine

that the damage claimed is shipment related damage.

Additionally, the repair firm must indicate what it will

cost to repair the item or they must state that the item

cannot be repaired because of the physical condition of the

item or that it would not be economical to repair the item.

Do not just go to the PX or a retail location such as Best

Buy or Circuit City and determine what a new, comparable

replacement item will cost unless the repair firm tells you

that the item is damaged beyond repair and indicates the

same message of the repair estimate. If electronic items

are missing from your shipment, then we will need a

replacement cost estimate, either from a store, the

Internet, or a mail order catalog. Make sure that you

select a comparable item to the one that was missing. If

you overreach by exaggerating the original cost of the

item, its newness, or the cost of the comparable item, the

Army Claims Service has authorized local offices to zero

out that item, or the entire claim, and refer the matter

for disciplinary action under various fraud statutes.

Each claims office has a vast array of catalogs and

telephone numbers to both PX distributors and equipment

manufacturers as well as Internet access which allows us to

quickly track down the age and price on discontinued models

of various items. And like the IRS, if a "siren" goes off

on one item, it can lead to closer scrutiny of other parts

of the claim as well as requests for more substantiation on

the value, condition, etc., of other items being claimed.

Honesty is the best policy from a moral standpoint and it

is the safest policy from a career standpoint.

After the delivery of your goods the carrier and/or the

claims office may want to inspect the damage on your

shipment. By Government agreement with the carrier

industry, the carrier has the right to inspect and you must

cooperate with the inspection. If the inspector does come

out, a copy of the inspection will be sent to the claims

office and we must normally use it in determining the

nature, extent, and cost to repair the damage to your

shipment.

Don’t forget that while the total Government coverage for

loss or damage on your household goods is $40,000, many

types of property have specific individual limits that will

be applied. If you have very high value items (e.g.

paintings, pianos, watches, antiques), or large amounts of

a particular item (e.g. collectibles, crystal, stamps,

baseball cards, tools), check with the claims office to see

if there is a limit and whether it would be wise to insure

the shipment in order to be fully protected.