Guide
This guide holds nothing back. Below is the complete claim process, step by step, exactly as you would do it yourself for free — because the first question a tired carrier asks at midnight is not 'who can I pay,' it is 'what do I actually do.' Read it, and if the shoebox-and-clock race is more than you want to run alone, the last section says plainly what handing it over adds.
Sureties expect the claim file to show you tried to collect from the broker first. Send a written demand — email counts: the load number, the amount, the delivery date, the invoice date, and a plain request for payment by a named date. Keep the sent copy and any reply. Two or three documented attempts across a couple of weeks is the usual shape; a broker who has vanished entirely is his own documentation — note the dates you called and wrote, and move on faster.
The claim belongs to the surety that held the broker's bond when the load was delivered. Bonds are switched, replaced and cancelled; the company holding the bond today may have nothing to do with your load, and a claim sent to it is a claim going nowhere while your windows close. The federal Licensing & Insurance files hold the whole history — every surety, every start and cancellation date. Our free delivery-date lookup reads that history for you; the same history is printed as a timeline on every broker's page in the record. The worked version of this step is its own guide: who held the broker's bond.
Write down: surety name, bond form (BMC-84 for a surety bond, BMC-85 for a trust fund), bond number, and the dates that surety held it. You will put all four on the claim.
Add the broker-carrier agreement if you signed one. Several loads against the same broker go in as one claim — a package per load inside it, each with its own five papers. Check every set the way an adjuster will: does the MC number match the broker, do pickup and delivery dates agree across the papers, does the invoice amount equal the rate con amount? A mismatch is not fatal, but unexplained it stalls everything — one line of explanation in the claim letter fixes it.
Short, factual, in your name. It needs: your carrier's legal name, MC and USDOT numbers and contact details; the broker's legal name and MC number; the surety and bond number from step 2; for each load — pickup and delivery dates, the amount owed, and the invoice number; the dates you asked for payment and what came back; and the total claimed. Facts and dates only. No threats of legal action — you are presenting a claim to an insurance company, not arguing in a bar, and the letter that reads like paperwork gets processed like paperwork.
There is no single federal claims office; each surety and administrator takes claims its own way — an online portal, a claim form of its own, or a package by mail or email. The big administrators publish their intake plainly (the largest asks for the broker's MC, your MC, load dates and the total first, then takes the per-load papers in a claimant portal). Follow that surety's stated route exactly, keep proof of sending, and keep your own complete copy. However it goes in, the next thing you must receive is an acknowledgment — a claim number or a letter saying the claim is on file. No acknowledgment within a couple of weeks means chase it: a claim the surety never logged is a claim that does not exist.
The surety tells the broker a claim has been filed. The broker can pay, stay silent, or dispute — damage, lateness, a term in the agreement. Looking into it commonly takes 30 to 90 days. Answer every follow-up from the surety promptly and in writing; if the broker disputes, your signed delivery papers are the answer, and they speak for themselves. The outcome arrives in writing: paid in full, paid in part, or denied with a stated reason. If the claim succeeds, the surety pays you directly. The full timeline is in how long does a bond claim take.
And one pot to remember: the bond is $75,000 shared by every valid claim against that broker. What that means for your share is in when claims pass $75,000.
Zero dollars, and real hours: an evening finding the right surety, an evening assembling and checking the papers, the letter, the surety's own intake route, and then weeks of follow-up inside windows you must watch yourself. Carriers do it every day and win. Carriers also lose claims to a wrong surety, an unsigned delivery receipt nobody flagged, or a 60-day window that closed during a busy month. That gap — not the information, which you now have in full — is the whole reason the paid version of this job exists.
FileTheBond does the same steps: surety from your delivery date, the five papers checked by a person before anything is filed, the letter in your name, the package in the shape that surety wants, the clocks watched with warnings, the status chased for the life of the claim — for a flat $79, $129 or $189 by the amount owed, one fee for every load against that broker. It adds no promises: The fee buys the filing — prepared right, filed on time. It never buys a recovery. Where a surety takes claims from an authorized third party we submit it and bring back the acknowledgment; where it takes them from the carrier only, you get the ready-to-send package — and we tell you which one happened, in those words. Details on how it works.
Everything above is the whole job, and it is yours. If the papers are in a shoebox and the clock is running, FileTheBond finds the surety, builds the package and files it for a flat $79, $129 or $189 by the amount owed — The fee buys the filing — prepared right, filed on time. It never buys a recovery.