BMC-84 vs BMC-85: which surety is right for your brokerage

Every property broker the FMCSA licenses has to file proof of $75,000 in financial responsibility. There are exactly two ways to do that: a BMC-84 surety bond from a licensed insurance company, or a BMC-85 trust fund agreement held by a qualified financial institution.

Most brokers default to BMC-84 because it’s how the surety broker quoted them and BMC-85 sounds like a thing for big shops. That’s the wrong way to choose. The right way is to look at three things about your business and pick the form that fits — and, since January 2026, to understand that the federal rules governing the trust option changed underneath everyone who was already using it.

One thing before the comparison: whichever form you pick, it is the single load-bearing wall of your authority. We autopsied 10,003 brokerage deaths from the last two years, and 99.8% of them died the same way — the filing behind the authority lapsed, and FMCSA revoked a median 8 days later. This choice isn’t paperwork. It’s the paperwork.

What each form actually is

BMC-84 is a surety bond. You pay a surety company an annual premium — underwritten mostly on personal credit, typically quoted between 1.25% and 15% of the $75,000 face value, so roughly $940 to $11,000 a year. If a carrier or shipper makes a valid claim against you, the surety pays out up to $75,000 and then comes after you to recover what they paid. You’re on the hook for the full amount; the surety is just the front-line check writer.

BMC-85 is a trust fund. You place $75,000 of your own assets with a qualified trustee. There’s no premium — the costs are the trustee’s annual administration fee and the fact that $75,000 of your capital is locked behind a federal filing. Since the trust can hold interest-bearing assets, the money isn’t dead — but it isn’t working capital either, and you can’t touch it while your authority depends on it.

What changed in 2024–2026

FMCSA’s broker financial responsibility final rule — published November 2023, phased in through this past January — rewired both forms in ways that matter more for the trust:

• The 7-day clock (since January 16, 2025). If your available security drops below $75,000 — because a claim was paid out of your bond or trust — you have 7 calendar days to replenish it or FMCSA suspends your authority. Under the old regime a drawdown was between you and your provider. Now every paid claim starts a federal countdown.
• Trust assets got restricted (since January 16, 2026). A BMC-85 trust may now hold only cash, irrevocable letters of credit from federally insured institutions, or U.S. Treasury bonds — assets liquidatable within 7 days. The financed trust, where a provider let you “fund” the $75,000 with a loan or pledged receivables for a few hundred dollars a year, is dead. That product existed because it let undercapitalized brokers look capitalized. The rule was written to kill it, and it did.
• Loan and finance companies can no longer serve as trustees. If your trust sits with a provider that no longer qualifies, FMCSA gives you 30 days to refile with a qualified one before suspension.

If you filed a BMC-85 before 2026 through a low-cost financed program, the thing you bought no longer satisfies the regulation it was sold for. Check who your trustee is and what’s actually in the trust — this month, not at renewal.

Three questions to choose between them

1. Do you have $75,000 in liquid capital you’re willing to park? Actually liquid — post-2026, the trust takes cash, letters of credit, or Treasuries, nothing creative. If yes, BMC-85 can be meaningfully cheaper over a five-year horizon, especially since Treasuries in the trust still earn their coupon. If no, BMC-84 is the answer, full stop. The financed-trust shortcut is gone.

2. What’s your credit profile? BMC-84 premiums scale aggressively with credit. A broker with excellent personal credit gets quoted near the floor — call it $940–$2,400 a year. A broker with damaged credit can be quoted 10–15%, which is $7,500–$11,250 a year for the same piece of paper. At those premiums, funding a trust — even slowly, even painfully — starts beating the bond within two renewal cycles.

3. How exposed are you to claims? Broker bond claims are mostly carriers who didn’t get paid for loads you invoiced. If your receivables are clean and your shipper mix is stable, you may never see one. If you run high-dispute freight, remember the asymmetry: a BMC-84 claim is the surety’s money first and their investigation runs in front of it; a BMC-85 claim is your money leaving your trust. Either way, under the new rule, the payout starts the same 7-day replenish-or-die clock — but watching your own $75,000 walk out of a trust is a different experience than getting an indemnity demand letter.

What the filing signals — and what it predicts

When a shipper or a sophisticated carrier pulls your authority record, your filing type is on it. A BMC-85 reads as “this broker has $75,000 in actual assets locked up,” which — post-2026, now that the financed trust is gone — is a genuinely stronger capitalization signal than it used to be. A BMC-84 reads as “this broker passed a surety’s underwriting.” Neither wins you a lane by itself. At the margin, in a competitive bid, margins matter.

The filing history matters more than the filing type. In our bond forensics, 97% of the filings that died ahead of a revocation were flat cancellations — never replaced, no shopping, just over. A counterparty who checks your L&I history is reading your actuarial chart. Keep it boring.

When to switch

Run the trust math whenever your annual premium crosses ~$2,500. At a 5% premium you’re paying $3,750 a year for the bond; a trust funded with Treasury bonds earns instead of costs, and the crossover arrives in well under five years even after trustee fees. Below ~$1,500 a year, stay with the bond — the flexibility of not parking $75,000 is worth more than the premium, and the switch itself (new filing, provider coordination, no gap allowed) is not free. And if you’re anywhere near the 8-day pipeline — struggling to make the premium at all — the form is not your problem.

Receipts: Financial responsibility requirement and the two filing forms per 49 CFR Part 387; the $75,000 floor was set by MAP-21, effective October 2013, and hasn’t moved since — see our piece on where the real insurance gap is. Rule changes from FMCSA’s Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility final rule (88 FR 78656, Nov. 16, 2023): suspension provisions effective January 16, 2025; trust asset and trustee eligibility provisions effective January 16, 2026. Premium ranges are published surety-market quote ranges as of mid-2026, not offers. Bond-death statistics from our own reconstruction of FMCSA authority and L&I insurance history.

This article is general information, not financial or legal advice. Talk to your CPA and your surety broker before changing your filings.