What insurance does a Texas drayage carrier need to pull containers under the UIIA?

This is for Texas carriers moving ocean containers between marine terminals, rail ramps and warehouses: harbor truckers working Port Houston's Barbours Cut and Bayport terminals, carriers serving inland rail intermodal ramps, and owner-operators leased to drayage companies. See the Houston and Dallas location pages for local context.

Drayage insurance is driven by one document more than any law: the Uniform Intermodal Interchange and Facilities Access Agreement (UIIA). Ocean carriers, railroads and chassis providers that participate in it (equipment providers) interchange containers and chassis under its terms, and its insurance rules are specific.

The Intermodal Association of North America publishes the UIIA insurance requirements. As of our review, they are:

A drayage driver is almost always pulling a container and chassis the carrier does not own. When that equipment is damaged in your care, the UIIA makes you responsible. That is what trailer interchange insurance is for. A few points specific to drayage:

• Each provider sets its own limit. One ocean carrier's addendum may ask for a different trailer interchange limit than a railroad's. Your limit has to meet the highest requirement among the providers you actually pull for.
• The container and the chassis are both equipment. A crash can damage both, and the claim can include more than the repair bill. Read the interchange agreement for loss of use and per diem charges, and ask whether your policy responds to them.
• Street turns and storage. Equipment parked at your yard or a customer's site between moves is still in your care.

See trailer interchange vs. non-owned trailer for when each applies.

Port Houston requires truck drivers to present a valid TWIC at entry points into the secure areas of its container terminals. A TWIC by itself does not guarantee access; Port Houston also looks at business need and approval. That matters for insurance because underwriters ask who your drivers are, and a drayage carrier that hires quickly to keep up with port volume needs a driver qualification process that holds up on both fronts. See can new CDL drivers get insured.

Rail ramps run their own gate and equipment rules through the railroad's UIIA addendum. If you work both port and rail, your certificate needs to satisfy both sets of providers.

Drayage is short-haul, stop-and-go work in congested port and industrial traffic, so underwriters focus on driver turnover, how many owner-operators you lease versus employ, terminal wait-time practices, overweight container controls, and loss history. Leased owner-operators bring the owner-operator coverage split into play.

Most drayage certificate problems start when a carrier picks up a new steamship line, railroad or chassis pool and assumes the existing UIIA filing covers it. Walk through this before the first pull:

1. Read the provider's addendum. Each equipment provider publishes its own requirements in the UIIA system, including trailer interchange limits and deductibles and whether it wants cargo, workers comp or employers liability.
2. Compare the highest requirement to your policy. Your trailer interchange limit has to meet the highest one among all your providers, not the average.
3. Confirm the additional insured wording. The UIIA allows blanket additional insured wording on the online ACORD form; if your policy uses scheduled additional insureds, the new provider has to be added by endorsement.
4. Check the umbrella. If you want the umbrella to count toward a provider's limit, the ACORD 22 has to say which policies it sits over.
5. Line up the renewal. The UIIA expires coverage at 12:01 a.m. on the expiration date, so renewal paperwork needs to be filed before then.

We can review your current UIIA filing against a new provider's addendum before you commit to the freight. Start with the review form.