Your container has arrived. The port is calling, the truck is booked, the customs broker wants documents — and the whole transaction is now judged in about seventy-two hours. This is the stage where importers quietly lose money that no supplier, carrier or insurer will ever hand back: damage that was never documented, shortages that were never surveyed, and claims filed after the evidence window closed.
Pre-shipment inspection gets most of the attention, and it deserves it. But arrival inspection is where your rights are actually enforced. This playbook covers what to do between the vessel berthing and the vehicle reaching your yard.
Three things happen at once when a vessel berths.
First, responsibility shifts. Before discharge, the cargo sits under the carrier's custody and your marine cargo policy. After you sign a clean delivery receipt, the burden of proving that damage existed before delivery moves to you. Signing without inspection is the single most expensive habit in vehicle importing.
Second, the clock starts. Insurance policies and carrier conventions define reporting windows that are short — commonly a few days for visible damage and a short period after delivery for concealed damage, with the exact terms set by your policy and the carrier's bill of lading. Miss the window and a valid claim becomes a rejected claim.
Third, the vehicle changes hands several times in one day. Stevedores, port staff, a haulage contractor, a yard. Every handover is a chance for a scratch, a broken mirror or a missing spare wheel, and every handover blurs who is responsible.
Arrival inspection is won in advance. While the container is still on the water, assemble:
If you have bought on terms where the supplier arranges insurance, confirm in writing who holds the policy and who is entitled to claim. Being the importer does not automatically make you the beneficiary.
The container seal is evidence. Photograph it intact, photograph the seal number, and photograph it again after cutting. If the seal number does not match the bill of lading or the loading record, stop and record that fact immediately — it is the first line of a theft or tampering claim.
Then open and survey:
Do not let the container be devolved informally. If the port requires you to take delivery within a fixed window, arrange the survey for the first available slot rather than accepting the vehicle and inspecting later.
This is the step importers rush. A delivery receipt is not a formality — it is a statement of fact that you will live with.
A clean receipt followed by a claim two weeks later is the weakest position you can be in.
A claim package that gets paid usually contains the same six items: the policy or contract under which you claim, the delivery receipt with remarks, the surveyor's report, dated photographs, the repair estimate or invoice, and the calculation of the amount claimed.
Send it to every party with potential liability in parallel rather than sequentially — the carrier or their agent, the freight forwarder, your insurer, and the supplier if the cause points to loading. Waiting for one party to answer before notifying the next is how windows are missed.
Keep the damaged parts until the claim is settled or the surveyor releases them. Repairing first and claiming afterwards is legitimate in many cases, but the estimate and the photographs must exist before the repair.
| What you see | Likely cause | Who to notify first |
|---|---|---|
| Scratches and dents on one side only | Handling at loading or discharge | Carrier agent + insurer |
| Roof or bonnet deformation | Stacking or failed racking | Carrier + supplier loading record |
| Broken glass with no impact mark | Pressure or flexing in transit | Carrier |
| Missing accessories, intact seal | Short-loading at origin | Supplier |
| Broken seal, missing unit | Theft or tampering | Carrier, insurer, port authority |
| Battery or charging fault on EV | Discharge in transit or handling | Carrier + supplier |
The pattern matters more than the size of the damage, because it decides who pays.
Importers who claim successfully are not luckier; they are more procedural. Three habits make the difference: appointing a surveyor before the vessel berths, refusing to sign a clean receipt on an uninspected container, and keeping one file per shipment where photographs, receipts and correspondence live together.
If you handle several containers a month, write the arrival process down and give it to the person who actually goes to the port. The procedure is worth more than any single claim.
It depends on your policy and the carrier's terms. Visible damage is typically reported within a few days of delivery and concealed damage within a short period after that. Confirm the exact numbers in your own policy and bill of lading before the vessel arrives, and treat those written terms as final.
No. Ask for the survey to be scheduled, or note on the receipt that the goods were received subject to inspection and that damage was not yet assessed. Signing clean removes your strongest evidence.
It depends on the cause. Handling damage during sea carriage generally falls to the carrier and your cargo insurer; short-loading falls to the supplier; port handling damage falls to the party that handled it. The survey report and the loading photographs are what decide the allocation.
Not always, but the threshold is lower than most importers assume. For a first shipment, a high-value unit, an electric vehicle or any visible damage, an independent report pays for itself because insurers and carriers treat it as evidence rather than opinion.
Record it before opening, photograph the seal, notify the carrier and your insurer immediately, and request a joint survey. A mismatched seal is a potential tampering or theft case, not a routine discrepancy.
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