Having shipped a few hundred items selling on Ebay, I have had (0) issues with UPS. I box them as if they are going to fall out of second story window every time, perhaps this helps.

We would ship radiators, ac parts, etc... via UPS daily. About 30% of the time, the radiators would arrive damaged.

We had a pretty good relationship with the driver for our route, showed up at 10am and 5pm every day he worked. We'd all joke around, mess with him about being a union worker, why he chose to take the busy days off, etc... He had about 20 years service, so he knew it all.

On the subject of damage, he explained that the conveyor belt couldn't appropriately handle some of our parts, packaged well or not. It seemed reasonable, but when you hear your parcels slam to the floor of the truck as it rounds the turn leaving the dock, you knew it would come back.

All in fun, before we helped load the truck, we'd ask if we should go ahead and punch some holes in the boxes to save them some time.

Some of the packages, which were refused on the receiving end and returned, were pretty ugly. Several looked as if they were run over, some boxes even had tire marks.

Update. I appealed the decision that UPS was not responsible for the damage and guess what I got a very nice young lady on th phone at UPS. She said the damage was definatley caused by them and she would make sure I get paid for the damage. They are mailing me out some forms to file and after that she said I will get a check. So now I will wait and see what happens and I might have to eat my words. If I would have just accepted the first guys decision that would have been it and they would not have paid I guess it pays not to take no for an answer unless you are on a date.

Disgruntled ex-employee here of some undefined shipping company, with a body f'cked up for life in my late 20's.
My perspective on how your panels were damaged:

Management:
Company hires lowlifes who will not support a union and overwork them like dogs. Union reps only think of themselves. Employees are encouraged to burn out and quit before becoming vested (pension and benefits).
Floor shift managers are put under tremendous stress to "make their numbers" i.e. packages per hour. Verbal abuse and personal pressure is common and condoned, and low level managers are rotated or fired frequently to avoid class action lawsuits upon the corporation.

Equipment and processing:
Outdated and inefficient with 6' belts reducing to 3', insufficient turning radius, vertical support structures that catch edges and create jams, belts and walkways not being at ergonomic height with trailers, etc, etc, etc. Repeat daily with tens/hundreds of thousands of packages daily in each hub and you'll understand.
Trailers are not cleaned and full of dust and debris and creates a psychologically negative working environment.
Delivery vans are ill-equipped to handle oversize packages and consistently overloaded in the morning for the whole day. I've seen one sitting in the road with two busted leaf springs. Clutches are replaced frequently.

Employees:
Lowlifes skip Mondays and Fridays frequently, with sometimes 25% of the building missing. Most work very hard though some vested employees (lawyer-ed up and special) don't do anything all day long.

Electronic stub hours are occasionally shorted, or overtime is not even recognized even for hard working employees.
Mysterious how those computers work....

The other remaining employees are given the task of 2-3 people and verbally abused. Managers consistently move more employees to the sorting isle, which overloads the belts upstream, damages packages, and creates pressure on loaders at the trailers. Package handling and care is null at this point, because nobody cares how the packages get into the trailer.
A daily crisis and manufactured by design.

Everything is processed together, because there are no rewards for doing a good job, and little is lost for not trying.
Who cares in that type of work environment?

^^^Matt- Was in the same biz years ago... You need to have a meeting with the UPS hub management-

Its a company problem and most of the damage comes from the shipping hubs. Many are not direct UPS employees, paid minimum wage and pushed under pressure. Temp hires during the Christmas holiday are worse yet. What do they care? As for the drivers, its not their concern how contents are packaged and they certainly don't waste time under pressure. From formerly using them in two different warehouse operations, they were overall very good and timely. If I recall correctly had two percent damage content for outbound - for fragile automotive radiators. Its the chance one takes and reasonable priced. Inbound were probably about the same. The mutulation on some were laughable

I worked for them for 20 years, I feel your pain.

I used to part out Datsun Z cars down to the smallest pieces and shipped all over the United States and Canada using mostly UPS for the larger items and USPS for the smaller ones (flat rate boxes mostly). I don't believe I ever had a real problem with UPS losing or damaging anything, I guess I was lucky. I did over-package every item, using double thick cardboard and boxes and running 3" tape down all the seams, corners, and edges to hold it together should it get wet or torn.

Last time I used UPS was to ship a quite valuable G Date Mauser K98. The new owner reported that the box was destroyed so bad that he couldn't imagine what may have caused the damage, but luckily careful packing on my part saved the rifle. I've been using USPS ever since and haven't had a bad experience. Plus they employ many Vets which I'm all too happy to support.