Broker-carrier agreement

The rate confirmation covers one load. The broker-carrier agreement covers the relationship: it is signed once, usually during carrier setup, and every rate confirmation after that incorporates it by reference.

What it settles:

• Payment terms (net 30 is common) and the quick-pay option and its fee.
• Insurance minimums: cargo coverage, typically $100,000, and auto liability, typically $1,000,000, with the broker named as certificate holder.
• Cargo liability and how claims are filed and offset.
• No re-brokering: the carrier may not hand the load to another carrier without written consent. This is the clause double brokering violates.
• Back-solicitation: the carrier may not go around the broker to the shipper for a period after hauling its freight.
• Documentation: a signed proof of delivery is required before payment, and what counts as one.

A newer clause covers communication consent: the carrier agrees, for itself and its drivers, to receive automated text messages and calls about load status. Under US law, automated texts and artificial-voice calls to a mobile number require the recipient’s prior express consent, so a broker that tracks loads by text needs this language in the agreement and in the rate confirmation, and needs to record that the carrier signed it. Without it, the broker’s tracking tool has to stay silent for that carrier.