A Canadian freight broker called me a few months ago, in a bind. His BMC-84 renewal had come up, his current surety was stepping away from the line offering, and he wanted to shop it. Reasonable enough. Except when he started calling around, he kept running into the same wall: Canadian insurers couldn’t place the bond, and most U.S. surety agents weren’t set up to work with a Canadian-domiciled company.
He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He didn’t have a U.S. surety partner in his corner. That’s a problem that’s more common than most people in the Canadian broker market realize, and it’s getting worse.
What the BMC-84 Actually Is
The BMC-84 is a $75,000 surety bond required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) for every licensed freight broker operating in the United States. Without it, your authority lapses. You can’t legally broker freight across the border.
It’s not insurance. It’s a financial guarantee that you’ll pay your carriers. If you don’t, a carrier can file a claim against the bond, the surety pays and then comes after you for reimbursement. The bond protects the carrier. You’re on the hook.
That structure matters because it means sureties underwrite BMC-84s the way a bank underwrites a loan: they want to know you’ll pay them back if something goes wrong. Credit score, financial history, years in business, and claims record. All of it counts.
Why Remarketing Is Harder Than It Looks
Here’s where Canadian brokers hit the wall.
To remarket a BMC-84, you need access to a U.S.-licensed surety carrier. Most Canadian MGAs and brokerages don’t have that. They can place Canadian surety products all day. Still, the BMC-84 is a U.S. federal bond and must be issued by a company authorized by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and filed electronically with the FMCSA.
That’s not a formality. It means the surety provider needs active U.S. carrier relationships, FMCSA filing authority, and the underwriting infrastructure to handle a Canadian-domiciled applicant. Most don’t, and those that do want 100% collateral.
If your current surety conditions collateral or exit the market, and you don’t have a U.S. partner, you’re not shopping your bond. You’re losing your authority.
The freight broker bond market has also tightened significantly since 2022. Several carriers that used to write BMC-84s have pulled out of the line entirely, citing sustained claims activity and industry-wide fraud. The carriers that remain are more selective. Bad credit programs without collateral are largely gone. Rates have moved up. And for Canadian brokers specifically, the foreign-domicile factor adds an extra layer of underwriting scrutiny that a generalist U.S. agent isn’t always equipped to navigate.
What Collateral Has to Do With It
First-time BMC-84 applicants who have no prior FMCSA bond history will typically be required to post collateral. For Canadian Sureties, that number has risen to 100%. That’s either a cash deposit or an irrevocable U.S. dollar letter of credit. In Canada, collateral may only be provided in the form of a U.S. dollar Letter of Credit. In the US, the collateral is held for 1 year and released if the bond is in good standing and no claims are made. In Canada, the Letter of Credit is often held indefinitely.
If you’ve had a prior BMC-84 on file with the FMCSA, and your record is clean, collateral is usually waived. That’s a significant difference in costs and cash flow, which is another reason a clean bond history matters.
The same applies if you’ve been operating under a BMC-85 trust. Proof of that filing goes a long way with the underwriter.
What This Means at Renewal
If you’re a Canadian freight broker with an active BMC-84 and your renewal is coming up, now is the time to make sure you have a U.S. surety partner who can actually move your bond if needed. Not after your Surety demands collateral. Not after your carrier declines to renew. Now.
At Ai Surety Bonding USA, we work directly with Canadian freight brokers. We maintain active U.S. carrier relationships for BMC-84 placements. We understand cross-border underwriting requirements and file directly with the FMCSA. You don’t need to navigate the U.S. system. We handle that part.
If you want to know what your renewal looks like or whether your current rate is competitive, reach out. It’s a short conversation, and it’s worth having before a renewal problem becomes an authority problem.
Contact: dustin@aisuretyusa.com | 281-845-1468 | aisuretyusa.com
Your Client Needs a U.S. Bond. What You Do Next Decides Whether They Stay.
Author: Dustin SanVido, Director of Sales — Ai Surety Bonding USA
Category: Logistics | U.S. Bonds | Client Retention | Canadian Logistics Companies
Reading time: Approx. 4 minutes
It happens more often than most logistics companies track. A client calls with a question about a U.S. customs bond or a freight broker licence bond. The person who answers the call doesn’t have a clear answer. They say they’ll look into it. The client hangs up and starts calling around.
That’s not a bond issue. That’s a retention issue.
The company that answers the U.S. bond question clearly tends to maintain the relationship. It’s not complicated. When a client is expanding into a new market and encounters requirements they don’t fully understand, they remember who helped them figure them out.
Why This Keeps Coming Up
Canadian companies expanding into U.S. freight and logistics operations regularly encounter two bond requirements. The first is the BMC-84 freight broker bond, required by the FMCSA for any licensed U.S. freight broker. The second is the U.S. customs activity code bond, required by CBP for importers, bonded warehouse operators, and international carriers.
Neither of these is a Canadian product. They’re U.S. federal surety bonds issued by U.S.-licensed surety providers and filed directly with the relevant federal agency. Your client can’t obtain them through their Canadian insurance broker, and they can’t obtain them through most Canadian logistics providers either.
So when they ask you, and they will, what happens next matters.
The Cost of Not Having an Answer
The worst outcome isn’t that your client finds a U.S. surety provider on their own. The worst outcome is that they find a U.S. logistics company in the process and realize it can also handle their freight. Cross-border expansion opens the entire supplier relationship to review. If you can’t answer the bond question, you might lose more than the bond referral.
The better outcome is that you point them in the right direction, they get sorted, and they associate that solution with you. The bond itself takes a few days, but the goodwill from solving the problem lasts longer.
The company that answers the question clearly tends to keep the relationship. Being useful when a client needs help is what retention actually looks like.
What the Referral Actually Looks Like
This doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t need to understand the full underwriting process, nor do you need to become a surety expert. You need a single contact who handles U.S. surety bonds for Canadian companies and responds quickly when you send a client their way.
When a client comes to you with a U.S. bond need, you gather the basics: the company name, the type of bond needed, any timing constraints, and their contact details. You pass that along. The surety provider takes it from there, working directly with the client on the application and documentation, handling the underwriting, and filing the bond with the federal agency.
Your name is associated with the solution. Your client’s problem is solved. You didn’t need to become an expert in U.S. federal bonding to make that happen.
What the Two Most Common Bonds Cost
The BMC-84 freight broker bond is $75,000 and is required by the FMCSA for all licensed U.S. freight brokers. Annual premiums for a new broker typically start at USD $2,375 and vary based on the applicant’s credit profile and operating history. Turnaround time is 3 to 5 business days.
U.S. customs activity code bonds (importer, custodian, or international carrier) start at USD $495 per year for a $25,000 continuous bond. Most standard placements are completed within 48 hours. The required bond amount depends on the company’s import volume and the type of activity.
Neither is expensive relative to the cost of a delayed shipment or a lapsed freight broker licence. For clients serious about U.S. operations, these bonds are a cost of doing business, not a significant financial burden.
Getting Set Up
At Ai Surety Bonding USA, we partner with Canadian logistics companies as a referral and back-office partner for U.S. bond placements. You stay front-facing with your client. We handle the bond process. When your client has a U.S. bond question, you have a place to send it.
If you want to set that up, reach out. We’ll walk you through how it works, what to collect from a client when a request comes in, and what turnaround times look like for the bond types you’re most likely to encounter.
It’s a brief conversation. It can make a real difference the next time a client calls with a question you’d otherwise have to refer.