What If My Car Is Damaged in Transport? The Carrier Addendum Y7 Requires

If a carrier damages your car on a load Y7 Logistics arranged, the carrier is responsible for it. Every carrier Y7 dispatches with has signed Y7’s Carrier Damage Responsibility Addendum, known as Addendum A, once, before starting or resuming work with Y7. It makes the carrier responsible for loss or damage while the car is in its custody, including amounts below its insurance deductible, and it sets a photo standard at pickup and delivery so that the car’s condition on each side of the trip is on record. This article explains why Y7, a Licensed & Bonded FMCSA Broker (MC #1741537, USDOT #4427359), requires it, what it obliges the carrier to do, and how it is signed. The addendum’s full text is a contract between Y7 and each carrier and is not published here.

Why Y7 requires it

Y7 moves cars from Copart, IAA and Manheim, and many of them are already damaged when the carrier arrives: salvage, collision or non-running auction vehicles. Transit damage on such a car is easy to argue about and often found only after delivery, sometimes at the export warehouse. A documented baseline at pickup is what separates the auction’s damage from the trip’s. That is a specialist problem, and the addendum is Y7’s answer to it.

It also closes two gaps that standard paperwork leaves open:

• The deductible. A carrier’s cargo insurance has a deductible. A repair that costs less than the deductible is not an insurance matter, and without a written obligation it can end up paid by no one.
• Generic notes. A pickup note such as “as is”, “auction vehicle” or “pre-existing damage” records nothing specific, yet it is often used later to cover new damage anywhere on the car.

What the addendum obliges the carrier to do

• Pay for loss or damage in its custody. From the moment the carrier or its driver takes the car and its keys at pickup until delivery is complete, including loading, unloading and any stop on the way.
• Pay below the deductible, and what its insurer does not. The carrier’s liability is not limited by its insurance, its deductible, or a delay or denial by its insurer. It pays those amounts directly.
• Answer for every driver. The carrier is responsible for every driver and everyone it lets handle the car, including a substitute driver.
• Follow the photo standard at both ends of the trip (below).

The exceptions are the ones the law recognises: damage the carrier proves was caused solely by an act of God, a public enemy, the customer’s own act, a public authority, or an inherent defect of the vehicle. Damage caused by Y7’s or the customer’s own negligence is not the carrier’s to pay.

The photo standard

The driver photographs every vehicle at pickup, before loading, and again at delivery, after unloading. At each end the standard requires at least 13 shots, plus a close-up of every existing damage with the whole panel in frame:

1. Front, full width, straight on
2. Rear, full width, straight on
3. Left side, full length
4. Right side, full length
5. The four corners at 45 degrees, wheels visible (four shots)
6. The roof, which is mandatory whatever deck the car rides on
7. The windshield and all glass
8. The odometer and dashboard, if accessible
9. The VIN plate or door-jamb label
10. The keys, with their count visible, and any loose parts

The photos must be original camera files, or come from an electronic Bill of Lading app that keeps the date, time and location, with no filters and no cropping. A dirty or wet car is photographed closer, panel by panel. Every existing damage has to be located, described and photographed at pickup to count as pre-existing; a generic note does not record it.

What the photos decide

The two sets of photos are the evidence. Damage that shows in the delivery photos and does not show in the pickup photos is treated as having happened while the car was in the carrier’s custody. Damage found shortly after delivery, in the export warehouse’s or the consignee’s intake photos, and absent from the pickup photos, is presumed to have happened in the carrier’s custody too, unless the carrier can show with its own records that the area was undamaged at delivery. If the pickup photos are missing or do not show an area, that area is presumed to have been undamaged at pickup. That is why the standard is strict: it protects the carrier that documents well as much as it protects the owner.

Y7’s role in a damage claim

Y7 is a broker, not a carrier, and it is not a party to the claim or the counterparty in the dispute. For transport damage caused by the carrier, Y7 prepares the documentation package, the pickup and delivery photos, the Bill of Lading, the delivery receipt and the load record, and supports the insurance claim within its broker authority.

When the carrier’s insurance pays, the payout goes directly to the client as the title holder. Y7 accompanies the claim but is not the recipient. In a real case on a load Y7 arranged, a client’s car arrived with transport damage; Y7 assembled the photos and documents for the carrier’s insurer, and the insurer paid the client, the title holder, directly. The same case also shows the limits of this page: every claim depends on its own evidence, and no outcome is promised in advance.

How the signing works

1. Y7 sends the addendum from the carrier’s profile in its dispatch system to the contacts on the carrier’s FMCSA and Central Dispatch records.
2. The carrier opens the link and confirms it with a one-time code sent by email.
3. The carrier’s representative reviews the full text and signs; the signing page works on a phone.
4. The executed copy, a PDF with a signature certificate, goes to the carrier’s contacts and to Y7.

A carrier signs once, before starting or resuming work with Y7, and the addendum then applies to every load it accepts from Y7. Every carrier Y7 dispatches with has signed it.

What the addendum does not change

• Y7 is a broker, not a carrier. It arranges the transport; the carrier moves the car.
• Y7 carries no cargo insurance. Cargo insurance in transit is the carrier’s. Y7 requires carriers to carry at least $100,000 of cargo cover, and at least $150,000 for higher-value vehicles; that is Y7’s own requirement, not a federal one.
• The bond is a different instrument. Y7’s $75,000 BMC-84 surety bond is the federal financial-security filing for brokers, not a damage fund. The bond claims guide explains what it covers.
• Federal law still applies. The addendum adds to the carrier’s liability under federal law (the Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C. §14706) and does not reduce it.

What to do if your car arrives damaged

1. Write the damage on the delivery receipt or Bill of Lading, specifically, before you sign.
2. Photograph it from the same positions as the pickup photos.
3. Tell Y7 through your dispatcher or your Y7 account.

The step-by-step guide, with real cases, is Car Damaged During Transport?, and the photo checklist for your own inspection is the pickup and delivery photo checklist. Dealers buying at US auctions from outside the US will find how the whole US leg works on the page for dealers abroad.

Questions owners ask