Claims Guide

If a customer opted into shipping protection at checkout, they'll see a "File a claim" option in three places:

• Their My Account → Orders page, next to any protected order.
• A claims block or shortcode, if you've added one to a dedicated page.
• A link in the shipping confirmation or delivery-issue email, if you've customized your transactional emails to include one.

They don't need an account beyond their normal WooCommerce customer account — no separate login, no third-party portal.

When a customer starts a claim, they're asked to:

1. Select the order the claim relates to (pre-filled if they came from the Orders page).
2. Choose a reason — Lost in transit, Damaged on arrival, or Stolen/missing after delivery.
3. Add notes describing what happened.
4. Upload evidence — up to 10 photo files, 10MB each by default (filterable via a code hook if you need different limits).
5. Submit.

The claim is immediately created with status Pending Review and appears in your wp-admin claims queue. The customer receives an automatic email confirmation with their claim reference.

Go to CoverMyOrder → Claims to see your queue. Each claim shows:

• Order number and customer
• Claim reason and submission date
• Evidence thumbnails (click to view full size)
• Order's protection plan and coverage cap
• A risk sidebar — a basic customer risk profile on Free (claim frequency, account age); expanded fraud/geography scoring on Premium (Section 6)

Click into a claim to see the full evidence set, customer notes, and the linked order's shipping/tracking details side by side.

If tracking is available on the order:

• Manual entry — Free and Premium: you (or your fulfillment process) enter tracking manually, and the claim view shows current carrier status alongside the customer's report.
• AfterShip inbound webhook — Free and Premium: if you use AfterShip, tracking-status updates (e.g., "Delivered," "Exception") flow into the claim automatically as they change.
• Auto-filed claims (Premium) — when tracking status shows Lost or Damaged, Premium can automatically open a claim with no customer action required, pre-populated with the carrier's own status as evidence.

Once you've reviewed the evidence, you have two resolution paths:

Click Approve, choose the resolution type, and confirm. The claim status updates to Resolved, the customer is notified automatically, and — for refunds — the reserve ledger gets a new payout line immediately (Section 7).

You can also Deny a claim, with a required internal note explaining why (this note is not shown to the customer by default, but your denial message is — customize it under CoverMyOrder → Settings → Claim Messages).

Instead of reviewing every claim manually, Premium lets you set rules under CoverMyOrder → Automation:

• Threshold-based auto-approval — claims under a value you set (e.g., under $50) can auto-approve without an operator, as long as they don't trip a fraud flag.
• Fraud and abuse flags — risk scoring based on geography and seasonal signals, plus the customer's own claim history, holds suspicious claims for manual review even if they're under your auto-approval threshold.
• Per-customer payout caps — limits how much any single customer account can claim within a period, regardless of how many separate claims they file.
• Carrier recovery — when a claim involving a lost/damaged shipment is approved, Premium can automatically open a recovery record with FedEx/UPS/USPS on your behalf, so you have a shot at recovering cost from the carrier even after paying out the customer.

Every approved refund writes an entry to CoverMyOrder → Reserve Ledger:

• The original premium collected at checkout was already logged as an incoming entry.
• The claim payout is logged as an outgoing entry, linked back to the same order.
• Your running reserve balance updates immediately — this is the figure that tells you, at a glance, whether premiums collected are keeping pace with payouts.
• Entries are immutable — appended, never edited or overwritten, so the ledger stays defensible to an accountant.

CSV export of the full ledger (claims, protections, and reserve) is a Premium feature, for reconciliation outside wp-admin.