Services
Document a loss
Support a claim
For carriers and employers
Service areas
Middle Tennessee
- Nashville
- Clarksville
- Murfreesboro
- Franklin
- Hendersonville
- Smyrna
- Spring Hill
- Gallatin
- Lebanon
- Columbia
- Brentwood
- Mount Juliet
- La Vergne
- Cookeville
East Tennessee
West Tennessee
Truck, Trailer and Heavy Equipment Damage Documentation
Field documentation of physical damage to trucks, trailers and heavy equipment after a collision, rollover, fire, theft recovery or transport loss. Delator Claims Division records the condition of the unit for carriers, owners, lenders and attorneys. It does not appraise or value equipment.
- Coverage
- 95 of 95 counties
- Dispatch
- 24 / 7 / 365
- Metro response
- Under 60 min avg.
- Statewide
- 4-hour guarantee
What this service covers
Excavators, loaders, dozers, cranes, forklifts, tractors and the trucks and lowboy trailers that move them are damaged in ways that have little in common with a passenger car claim. A machine tips off a trailer on a ramp, a boom meets an overpass in transit, a hydraulic line fails and a fire follows, or a stolen skid steer is recovered with its panels cut. The unit may be sitting in a field, a tow yard or a dealer's lot far from any city.
The claim that follows may be an inland marine equipment claim, a commercial auto physical damage claim, a cargo claim or a liability claim against a hauler, and the people deciding it are rarely near the machine. Delator sends a licensed investigator to record the unit's identity, its configuration and every area of damage in detail. Appraisal, repair estimating and valuation are done by others; this is the factual record they start from.
Losses where a condition record is needed
- An equipment carrier needs a damaged machine recorded where it sits before a dealer or salvage buyer moves it.
- A machine shifted or fell during transport and the hauler, the owner and their insurers need the trailer deck and securement points photographed.
- A stolen unit has been recovered and the owner's insurer wants its condition, missing attachments and altered identification areas recorded.
- A lender or lessor wants independent photographs of a financed truck or machine after a reported loss.
- An overheight load struck a bridge or sign structure and both the equipment and the transport configuration need to be measured.
Identity, configuration and damage
- Serial plate and hour meter
- Manufacturer's plate, product identification number, model, engine plate and hour meter reading, photographed legibly and noted if missing, defaced or unreadable.
- Structural members and booms
- Frames, booms, sticks, masts, loader arms and cab protective structures, with bends, cracks, weld breaks and buckling photographed with scale.
- Hydraulic and fluid systems
- Cylinders, hoses, fittings, tanks and the ground beneath the unit, recording leaks, burst lines, scored rods and staining as observed.
- Undercarriage, tracks and tires
- Track chains, rollers, sprockets and pads or wheels, tires and axles, distinguishing visible impact damage from general wear in descriptive terms only.
- Attachments and what is absent
- Buckets, forks, blades, couplers and auxiliary tools present with the unit, and empty mounts where an attachment listed by the owner is not found.
- Transport deck and securement
- Trailer deck boards, ramps, D-rings, chain and binder condition and marks left by tracks or tires, where the loss occurred in transit.
From request to delivered record
- RequestCall dispatch or submit the request form with the location, loss type and urgency.
- DeployDispatch assigns the nearest available licensed field investigator through the statewide network.
- DocumentPhotographs, video, measurements and factual notes are captured once the scene is safe to work.
- PreserveFiles are timestamped, organized and kept in their original form with a record of who captured them.
- ReportThe package is delivered securely to the requesting party, typically the same day.
A complete condition record, not a valuation
Equipment adjusters and appraisers work from detail: which components are damaged, how badly and what the rest of the machine looks like. A handful of photographs from an operator's phone seldom shows the serial plate, the hour meter, the underside or the far side of the machine. Delator works around the unit in a set sequence, photographs each face and each major component, then returns to every damaged area for close views with scale and a written description.
The report describes condition. It does not state a repair cost, a market value, a salvage value or whether the unit is a total loss, and it does not say what caused a failure. Those opinions come from equipment appraisers, dealers' service departments and engineers retained by the parties. Because Delator has no stake in the valuation, owners and carriers can both use the photographs as an account of what the machine looked like on the date of inspection.
Where the machine is and how long it stays that way
Damaged equipment is exposed. A machine left on its side in a field takes on water, loses fluids and may be stripped of batteries, attachments or electronics. Bare metal on a burned unit begins to rust soon after the fire. A truck in a tow yard accrues storage charges, which pushes everyone toward moving it quickly. Each move by a wrecker or lowboy can add damage that is later hard to separate from the original loss unless the unit was documented first.
Many of these losses occur on rural job sites, farms, quarries and timber tracts well away from the metro areas. Delator covers all 95 Tennessee counties under the four-hour statewide deployment guarantee, with Routine, Rush and Emergency tiers. The requester supplies the location and arranges permission to enter the property. Where terrain, fire damage or an unstable machine makes part of the unit unsafe to approach, the notes state what was not examined and why.
On this assignment Delator field personnel record what is physically present: photographs, video, measurements and factual notes. They do not adjust, appraise or value the loss, do not determine coverage, cause or fault, and do not represent any party to the claim.
Delator Claims Division is not a law firm, an insurer or an engineering firm, and nothing on this page is legal advice.
Common questions about this service
Do you provide an appraisal or repair estimate for the equipment?
No. Delator documents physical condition only. It does not appraise, estimate repairs, state a value or declare a total loss. The photographs, identification details and notes are prepared so that an appraiser, dealer or adjuster who has not seen the unit can work from them.
Can you start or operate the machine to check what works?
No. The investigator does not start, move or operate damaged equipment. If the owner or an operator chooses to demonstrate a function, what is observed is recorded. Gauges, displays and fault codes that are visible with the key on are photographed when the owner turns the key.
Is this different from the equipment damage page elsewhere on the site?
Yes. This page covers mobile units: trucks, trailers and self-propelled or towed heavy equipment, including losses in transit. Stationary equipment inside buildings, such as production machinery or mechanical systems, is addressed under equipment damage documentation in the property damage section.
Can the owner of the machine request documentation, or only an insurer?
Either. Owners, contractors, lenders, haulers, carriers and attorneys can all request it. For an owner or other claimant, the service is neutral documentation: Delator does not adjust the claim, negotiate with the insurer or act as a public adjuster. Carriers and their counsel can separately retain the division for investigative work.
Available statewide, including
Every Tennessee county is covered. See the deployment map for typical response tiers by county.
Request documentation anywhere in Tennessee
Dispatch is staffed around the clock. For time-sensitive scenes, calling is fastest; the request form works for routine and scheduled assignments.