Freight broker bond claims
You hauled the loads, the rate confirmations and the delivery receipts are clean, and now the broker will not answer — or the number is dead and the load-board handle is gone. Behind an FMCSA-registered property broker sits $75,000 of financial security, a Form BMC-84 surety bond or a Form BMC-85 trust fund, and the thing nobody tells an unpaid carrier is that it is one aggregate fund every claimant draws on rather than a payout waiting per carrier. Once FMCSA publishes the cancellation notice, claims are accepted for only 60 calendar days — so these files turn on how fast the claim is on the record, not on how badly you were treated.
What’s included
How it works
Send the rate confirmations, bills of lading, delivery receipts, and invoices, the broker’s MC or USDOT number, and the dates — when you delivered, when you last had contact, and what you were last told. Before anything goes out we establish what is actually behind the broker, because the money is tied to its registration: under 49 U.S.C. 13906(b)(1)(A) the Secretary may register a person as a broker under section 13904 only if that person files a surety bond, proof of trust fund, or other financial security determined to be adequate, and 49 CFR 387.307(a) keeps that registration in effect only as long as a surety bond or trust fund for the full limits remains in effect. If a cancellation notice has already published, the 60-day window is already running, and you will hear that on the first call rather than in a status letter a month later. The fee is agreed before you place anything.
The claim goes to the broker and to the surety company or financial institution at the same time, because the surety provider is on a clock the broker is not: it must respond to the claim on or before the 30th day following the date the notice was received, and set forth its grounds in writing if it denies (49 U.S.C. 13906(b)(2)(B)). The broker’s own window sits inside the surety’s process rather than ours — a claim is payable where the broker does not respond to adequate notice and the surety provider determines that the claim is valid (13906(b)(2)(A)(ii)), and the regulation describes a payment made in a case where the broker “does not respond within 7 business days to address the validity of the claim” (49 CFR 387.307(e)(1)(ii)). Any payment that causes the bond or trust fund to fall below $75,000 obliges the provider to notify FMCSA within 2 business days, and FMCSA then gives the broker written notice that its operating authority registration will be suspended within 7 business days of service unless the broker shows the notification was sent in error, the security has been restored, or the pending claims have been satisfied without using bond or trust assets (387.307(e)(4), (e)(5)). In parallel we request the 49 CFR 371.3 transaction record and run the principals, because the record either supports the broker’s version of events or contradicts it, and the people behind a broker that stops paying are often already operating under a second name.
Two of the statute’s three routes to payment are collection work — the broker consents, subject to the review by the surety provider, or the broker does not respond to adequate notice and the surety provider determines that the claim is valid. The third is not: where the claim is not resolved within a reasonable period of time following a reasonable attempt under the first two, 49 U.S.C. 13906(b)(2)(A)(iii) requires it to be reduced to a judgment against the broker, and that is attorney work, placed with a licensed collection attorney in the broker’s own venue, nationwide through a network of licensed collection attorneys. We are a collection agency, so suit, liens, and legal advice are counsel’s and never ours. If the broker has already failed, the arithmetic changes rather than the work: uncontested claims received during the 60-day period are paid not later than 30 days after it expires, or each claimant takes a pro rata share where the total amount of those claims exceeds the financial security available (49 U.S.C. 13906(b)(6)(C)).
FAQ
Sixty calendar days — and the clock does not start when the broker stops paying, it starts when FMCSA publishes. Where a payment or other default under 49 CFR 387.307(e)(1) goes uncured, that is a financial failure or insolvency under the rule, the surety company or financial institution initiates cancellation of the Form BMC-84 or BMC-85, FMCSA provides written notice of the cancellation in the FMCSA Register on its public website, and claims must be accepted for 60 calendar days following that publication, extended to the next business day if the final day falls on a weekend or Federal holiday (49 CFR 387.307(f)). The statute runs the same period: 49 U.S.C. 13906(b)(6)(B) has the surety provider publicly advertise for claims for 60 days beginning on the date the Secretary publishes the notice to cancel. Cancellation itself takes 30 days’ written notice to FMCSA (49 CFR 387.307(d)(2)(i)), so by the time an unpaid carrier hears the broker is gone, other claimants are often already in line — place the file the week the broker goes quiet, not the quarter.
Not every company calling itself a broker does, and that distinction decides whether you have a bond claim at all. The $75,000 attaches to an FMCSA-registered property broker — registered, not licensed; the words “license” and “licensed” appear nowhere in 49 U.S.C. 13906, which speaks only of registration — and 13906(b)(3) fixes the amount at $75,000 regardless of the number of branch offices or sales agents of the broker. It is evidenced on Form BMC-84 for a surety bond or Form BMC-85 for a trust fund with a financial institution, filed with FMCSA for the full security limits, and a trust fund must contain assets that can be liquidated to cash within 7 calendar days, limited to cash, irrevocable letters of credit issued by a federally insured depository institution, and Treasury bonds (49 CFR 387.307(a), (b), (d)(1)). Freight forwarders sit under a separate subsection, 49 U.S.C. 13906(c), and a shipper that never paid the broker, or a motor carrier that handed you the load, is a different claim entirely.
There is no per-carrier figure, and that is the point most unpaid carriers are never told. The $75,000 is one aggregate fund that every claimant draws on rather than a payout waiting for each load, and it cannot be stretched — 49 U.S.C. 13906(b)(8) provides that the amount of the required financial security may not be reduced by deducting attorney’s fees or administrative costs. Pro rata sharing is the mechanic in a financial failure: under 13906(b)(6)(C) the surety provider pays all uncontested claims received during the 60-day period not later than 30 days after it expires, or a pro rata share of those claims if the total exceeds the financial security available. Outside that process, payments draw the same fund down as they are made, and any payment that causes the bond or trust fund to fall below $75,000 obliges the provider to notify FMCSA within 2 business days (49 CFR 387.307(e)) while 13906(b)(5) requires the Secretary to suspend the broker’s registration immediately once the available security falls below the required amount. So the bond is a reason to move early, and a reason to keep working the broker and its principals directly — not a number to plan around.
You can ask for the record, and the regulation is on your side. A broker must keep a record of each transaction and retain it for three years, showing the name and address of the consignor, the name, address, and registration number of the originating motor carrier, the bill of lading or freight bill number, the compensation the broker received for the brokerage service and the name of the payer, any non-brokerage service performed with its compensation and payer, and the amount of any freight charges collected by the broker together with the date of payment to the carrier (49 CFR 371.3(a), (b)). On the right to see it the text is short: “Each party to a brokered transaction has the right to review the record of the transaction required to be kept by these rules” (49 CFR 371.3(c)). Either answer moves the file — the record supports what the broker told you or it contradicts it, and a broker that collected the freight charges and never paid them over to the carrier is a materially different account.
A Title 11 filing is not, by itself, financial failure or insolvency under the rule — 49 CFR 387.307(f)(2) says so in terms, and the notification triggers in 387.307(e)(1) do not apply when a broker has filed to initiate a proceeding pursuant to Title 11 (387.307(e)(2)). In practice the bond and the bankruptcy are two tracks on the same debt, and which track your claim belongs on — and what the automatic stay permits — are legal questions for counsel rather than for an agency. Send the file with the case number and the schedules if you have them, and send it rather than sitting on it, because nothing in the bond mechanics pauses while you decide.
Usually not a bond claim, but potentially a larger one. 49 U.S.C. 14916(a) allows a person to provide interstate brokerage services as a broker only if that person is registered under, and in compliance with, section 13904 and has satisfied the financial security requirements under section 13906, and 14916(c) makes any person who knowingly authorizes, consents to, or permits a violation liable in two separate ways — to the United States Government for a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $10,000 for each violation, and to the injured party for all valid claims incurred without regard to amount. The penalty belongs to the government and not to you; the part that matters to a creditor is 14916(d), which applies that liability jointly and severally to any corporate entity or partnership involved and to the individual officers, directors, and principals of such entities. There are statutory exceptions in 14916(b) for certain ocean and customs intermediaries and indirect air carriers, so whether the theory is available on your facts is counsel’s call. We develop the documents and the chain of tender and place that question with counsel rather than characterizing your claim for you.
We assemble and present the claim and work the broker and its principals directly; the legal steps belong to lawyers. We are a collection agency, not a law firm — we do not file suit and we do not give legal advice, and bond rights are preserved and asserted through licensed counsel. The statute draws the same line: a claim can be paid where, subject to the review by the surety provider, the broker consents to the payment, or where the broker does not respond to adequate notice and the surety provider determines that the claim is valid, but the third route requires the claim to be reduced to a judgment against the broker (49 U.S.C. 13906(b)(2)(A)). A file that goes that way is placed with a licensed collection attorney in the broker’s venue, nationwide through a network of licensed collection attorneys, and 13906(b)(2)(C) provides that in any action against a surety provider to recover on such a claim the prevailing party is entitled to recover its reasonable costs and attorney’s fees.
We work commercial accounts on contingency — no retainer, no upfront cost — and the fee is agreed before you place anything. If a file would need suit, the court costs and the attorney engagement are reviewed with you before anything is filed, so you should not see a cost against your account that you did not agree to first. What we need is the paper: rate confirmations, bills of lading, delivery receipts, invoices, the broker’s MC or USDOT number, and any correspondence in which the broker acknowledged the balance or gave a date. Commercial accounts only. The firm has recovered more than $250 million across more than 10,000 accounts in 25-plus years, and the 70%-plus recovery rate on accepted accounts describes our own book rather than predicting anything about your file.
Tell us what you're owed and we'll tell you exactly how we'd go after it. The review is free, and you pay nothing unless we collect.
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