Why claims get refused
Almost never because the detention did not happen. Brokers refuse detention because the claim is late, unevidenced, or outside terms that were agreed in writing before the load ran.
A detention claim submitted a week later is a request for goodwill. A claim raised at hour two, in writing, against terms already on the rate confirmation, is an invoice. They are treated completely differently, and the difference is procedural rather than moral.
The claim starts before you arrive
You cannot claim against terms you never agreed. Before the load runs, the rate confirmation should state how much free time you get, what detention pays per hour after it, whether there is a cap, and whether pre-approval is required.
If the rate confirmation is silent on detention, you are relying on the broker's goodwill after the fact. That is a decision worth making knowingly at booking, when you can still ask for it in writing, rather than discovering it at hour four.
"Detention paid per shipper policy" is not terms. It means the shipper decides afterwards whether you were detained. Get a number and a free-time figure, or price the risk into the rate.
What evidence actually holds
A claim needs to show when you arrived, when you left, and that the delay was not yours. The strongest file has several independent sources saying the same thing:
- Arrival and departure times from your ELD, which are automatic and hard to dispute.
- Gate or check-in records — a stamped time on the BOL, a printed gate ticket, a signed in-time.
- A time-stamped photo of the truck at the gate or the dock, which costs nothing and settles arguments.
- The notification itself — the message you sent the broker while sitting, which is the part that turns delay into a claim.
- Names — who at the facility you spoke to and when.
The ELD record alone is usually enough to prove the hours. What it does not prove is that you told anyone while it was happening, and that is the point most claims turn on.
Notice is the whole game
Send a written message to the broker as soon as free time runs out. Not a phone call — or not only a phone call. Something with a timestamp: an email, a message in the broker's portal, a text you can screenshot.
Keep it factual and short. Unit number, load number, facility, arrival time, free time expiry, and a plain statement that detention is now accruing under the rate confirmation terms.
That message does two things. It creates a dated record, and it gives the broker a chance to intervene with the shipper — which occasionally gets you unloaded, and always makes the claim harder to dismiss as a surprise.
Submitting it so it does not stall
Invoice detention as a separate line with its own supporting documents, attached to the same load. Reference the rate confirmation terms directly — quote the free time and the hourly figure from the document you both signed.
Submit it with the load invoice rather than afterwards. A detention claim arriving alone, three weeks later, against an invoice already paid, is the easiest thing in the world for a broker to lose.
If you factor, check how your factor handles accessorials. Some fund them with the invoice, some hold them until the broker confirms, and finding that out during a dispute is the wrong time.
Watch the pattern, not just the claim
A facility that detains you three hours every time is not an accident, it is a cost of that lane. Once you can see it in your own records, you can price it in, ask for guaranteed detention at booking, or stop taking freight into it.
That is the argument for logging detention even when you decide not to claim it. The individual claim is worth a few hundred dollars. Knowing which lanes quietly eat a day a month is worth considerably more.