Need To Know

Types of Auto Transporters Did you know... There are several types of auto transport companies in the auto transport industry? There are brokers, carriers and companies that do both.

Brokers - You can call brokers the "middle man", carrier head hunter or transport travel agent and the type of company you will have the most communication with while shipping your car. The basics of a brokers responsibility is to find a legal carrier to handle the actual transporting of the vehicle. After the vehicle is assigned to a carrier the brokers legal responsibility ends as you are then doing business with the carrier. Brokers keep track of a carrier's insurance and license and most brokers go beyond simply finding a carrier and offer services far beyond what they are required to. For example from most brokers you can expect them to keep you up to date on the status of the vehicle move.

Most brokers maintain relationship with carriers that handle most routes and they handle separating the good carriers from the bad ones. A common question is why can't I go directly to the carrier? You can. That is if you are lucky enough to find a carrier that is able to handle your specific origin to destination and vehicle. Did we mention there are likely around 10,000 trucks operating in the auto transporter industry making finding the needle in a hay stack very difficult.

Carriers - Carriers are the driving force of the car shipping industry, quite literally. The carrier is the trucking company that will actually pick-up, transport and deliver the vehicle. Carriers in the auto transport industry must be licensed to transport vehicles and they must carry cargo insurance. Brokers are responsible for making sure the carrier they use meet these requirements.

Broker/Carriers - The hybrid of the industry are brokers that also own trucks and operate as carriers. The key thing to remember with auto transport broker/carriers is that by using these companies you are in no way guaranteeing that they are using their own company own trucks. Most companies still broker out a majority of their loads. The nice benefit to the broker/carrier is that if things are taking too long they may be able to speed things up by using one of their own trucks.