File a claim
You picked it up on time. You ran it through the night. You got it there, signed for, clean. Then the broker went quiet — the check is "processing," the emails slow down, the phone rings out. Meanwhile the bond clock is already running, because a broker who stops paying is often a broker whose bond is about to be cancelled, and a cancelled bond leaves you 60 days to file. This page is the way out of that seat: what a bond claim is, what we do with yours, what it costs, and what we will not promise you.
To work as a broker, a company has to put up a $75,000 bond — a pot of money held by a surety company, there for one reason: so carriers who hauled loads and were not paid have somewhere real to claim from. Filing on the bond means sending that surety a written claim, in your name, with the papers that prove the load: the rate confirmation that set the price, the bill of lading, the signed proof of delivery, your invoice, and proof that you asked the broker to pay and were not paid. The surety checks the papers, tells the broker a claim has been filed, looks into it — commonly 30 to 90 days — and decides. If the claim holds up, the surety pays you. Directly. The money never passes through us.
Three things make a claim live or die, and none of them is luck:
The fee buys the filing — prepared right, filed on time. It never buys a recovery.
One fee per broker. Every load that broker owes you on goes into the same package, for the same fee. The fee is set by the total you are owed:
| What the broker owes you | Flat fee | What a collection agency takes at 15–40% | File |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,500 or less | $79 | $150–$600 on a $1,500 claim | File — $79 |
| $1,501 – $5,000 | $129 | $750–$2,000 on a $5,000 claim | File — $129 |
| Over $5,000 | $189 | $1,500–$4,000 on a $10,000 claim | File — $189 |
Set those numbers against the going rate for help: collection agencies take 15–40% of whatever comes back — $300 to $800 on a $2,000 claim, if it comes back. Our fee is flat, known before you start, and buys the filing job itself. One honest difference, stated plainly: an agency's cut is only paid when money comes back, and our fee is paid for the filing whether the surety pays or not. That is exactly why the line above the prices matters: The fee buys the filing — prepared right, filed on time. It never buys a recovery.
Federal rules entitle each party to a transaction to see its record: the charges, and what the shipper actually paid the broker on your load. We prepare that request letter in your name, from the same file. Two honest notes: if your broker-carrier agreement waived your right to the records, we say so before anything is sent — the letter does not override your contract. And The current rule sets no deadline for the broker to answer. A broker who never answers has not broken a deadline that exists; the unanswered letter is still a fact on the record.
The government's complaint database is where unpaid-carrier complaints are logged against a broker. We fill the complaint in from your claim file; you send it under your own federal account — we never hold your login. A complaint does not get your money back. It puts the broker's name on the government's list, and it costs you nothing here because it should cost nothing anywhere.
There is one bond per broker: $75,000, shared by every carrier with a valid claim against that broker. When a broker goes down owing more than the bond holds — and going-down brokers usually do — the money in the pot is divided among the claims in the pool. So what does filing fast actually buy? Two real things: a guaranteed place in the pool, and surviving the windows — a claim that arrives after the 60-day window closes, or after the pool is settled, gets zero however strong it is. What speed never buys is first place in line, and anyone who promises you first-paid is selling you a story. Filed early, filed complete, inside every window: that is the whole advantage, and it is a real one.