Damage & claims

Stages five and six: Unpacking and Claim. You photograph what's broken. PCS Pal writes the claim. You review it and file it in DPS — the government's Defense Personal Property System at move.mil.

Logging damage while unpacking

Damage reveals itself slowly. You open a box in week three and there's the broken lamp. That trickle is the normal case, and the app is built for it — Photograph Damaged Items stays on your Home list the whole time.

1. Tap Photograph Damaged Items, then Log found damage.
2. Photograph the damage. Get close, get the light right, and show the break clearly.
3. Add more angles — up to three per item. One wide shot showing what the object is, one tight on the damage, is usually the strongest pair.
4. Answer which box it came out of if you still have the carton. Snap its sticker or pick it from the list.

Your photo backs up as soon as you take it. If your phone dies the next day, the evidence is already safe.

Keep going with Check Off High Value Items too — undamaged, damaged, or missing, one answer per item. A high-value item marked missing becomes a Missing claim line immediately.

What makes a good damage photo

• Show the item and the damage in the same set. A close-up of a crack, with no context, doesn't prove which item cracked.
• Include the sticker if it's still attached. It links the damage to the mover's own inventory line.
• Don't repair or discard anything before it's photographed — and keep the pieces where you can.
• Photograph the carton if the box tells the story: crushed corner, water stain, punctured side.

Begin Claim

When you've unpacked and photographed what's broken, tap Begin Claim on Home.

The app checks a few things first and tells you if something's unfinished — high-value items not checked off, a Bingo sheet never opened, inventory sheets not scanned. These are warnings, not gates: you can always begin anyway, and nothing you've captured is lost. Beginning your claim doesn't stop you logging more damage later.

On a split move, each shipment gets its own claim, because DPS takes one claim per shipment.

The 1-2-3 claim flow

Your claim is three steps, in order, on one screen.

① Upload

Every damaged and missing item you logged shows up as a tile — damage photos, and Missing items from your Bingo sheet and high-value list. Tap a photo to examine it full-screen. When the set looks right, send it for processing.

Processing takes time (batch AI, not an instant answer). You'll get an email when your claim is ready to review. Close the app; it keeps running.

② Review

Each item comes back as a written claim line. Open one and you'll see what the app built and why — before photo, damage photos, the narrative, the numbers. This is the step that deserves your attention.

③ File in DPS

Filing is best done on a computer — DPS is a rough experience on a phone. Sign in at pcspal.app, open your Dashboard, and work through your claim there with DPS open in another tab.

When it's submitted, come back to the app and tap This claim is filed in DPS so your settlement clocks start.

What the AI drafts

For each damaged item, PCS Pal produces a complete claim line:

• A match to your before-video. The damage photo is matched against the item as it looked in your pre-move footage — that's your "before" picture, and it's the evidence most claims never have.
• A match to the mover's inventory line. The line the app matched to, with its sheet and sticker number — DPS wants an inventory number on every claim line.
• A damage narrative. Written in the language a claim needs: what the item is, what happened to it, where the damage is.
• An estimated replacement value. A researched figure for what it costs to replace the item today.
• A comparable replacement link. A real listing for a like item, so your number isn't a guess you have to defend from memory.

Reviewing your lines

Go line by line. For each one you can:

• Accept it as written — it gets an Added chip.
• Edit the narrative or the replacement value. If the app's number is low for what you actually own, change it.
• Remove the line. Removed lines aren't deleted — they stay out of your claim but can be restored.

What to look for:

• Is the item right? A misidentified item is the one error worth hunting for.
• Is the value realistic? Replacement value means what a comparable item costs now, not what you paid in 2019.
• Does the narrative match the photo? If it says "scratched" and the photo shows a snapped leg, fix the words.
• Anything you don't want to claim? Remove it. A clean, believable claim beats a padded one.

Found more damage mid-review? Photograph it like anything else — starting your claim doesn't close the camera. Newly logged items go through processing and join the review as fresh lines.

Filing in DPS

PCS Pal prepares everything. You file it — we never log into DPS on your behalf.

Sign in at pcspal.app on a computer and open your Dashboard. You'll see your moves and shipments; open the claim you want to file. Then, with DPS open beside it:

1. Start the claim in DPS for that shipment at move.mil, and add a line item.
2. Copy each field across. Every field on the PCS Pal page has its own Copy button, and the labels match DPS's own column names — Item Name, Inventory Number, Loss Type, Damage Description, Replacement Cost/Value, and Purchase Cost and Year Acquired where you've supplied them. Copy, paste, next.
3. Attach the Evidence Packet. Each item has a Download PDF — one file holding that item's DPS fields, its before and after photos, the mover's inventory-sheet page, and the comparable link. It's compressed to stay under DPS's 5 MB per-file limit, so it uploads on the first try.
4. Repeat per item, then submit the claim in DPS.
5. Mark it filed in the app so your response clocks start.

Two shortcuts on that page:

• Download Claim Packet — a zip of everything for the whole claim, a folder per item with its PDF and raw photos. Good for your own records, or for an email to a claims office.
• Mark Complete — flips a claim from Draft to Complete so you can tell at a glance which shipments you've already filed.

After you file

Once your claim is in, the TSP has a set time to respond: 30 days for claims of $1,000 or less, 60 days for claims over $1,000.

If the offer comes back low, you're not stuck with it. You can counter it, and you can transfer individual line items to the Military Claims Office for the services to adjudicate — it's done per line, so a fair offer on one item doesn't force you to accept a bad one on another. Your legal assistance or claims office can walk you through a transfer.

Also worth knowing:

• Quick Claim — small claims of $2,000 or less can be settled on the spot and paid within 5 days. The Door Report flags candidates on delivery day.
• Essential items — if something you can't do without is damaged or missing, report it within 7 days and the TSP is required to respond within 2 business days.
• Carrier liability is $6.00 per pound times the shipment weight, with a $10,000 minimum and a $75,000 maximum per shipment.

Deadlines

Two clocks matter most, and both start on your delivery date. That's why the app pushes so hard on getting your delivery date right in the Door Report.

Note which window you're in: the filing deadline is keyed to your pickup date, while the countdown runs from your delivery date. Because the rule changed for pickups on and after May 15, 2026, families moving right now are on both sides of it.

PCS Pal tracks these from the dates you enter and surfaces each one in the app as it comes due. That's a convenience, not an authority.