What is Allied Van Lines?

How Allied Van Lines Is Structured

Allied Van Lines was founded in 1928 as a cooperative, non-profit organization owned by its member agents, created so that independent moving companies could coordinate return loads instead of running empty trucks. In 1968 it was reorganized as a standard share-issuing company, and in 1999 it merged with North American Van Lines to form a combined organization whose parent was renamed SIRVA, Inc. in 2002. Today Allied operates as a brand within SIRVA, headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. Its operating model remains the classic van line structure: a network of independently owned local moving companies, called agents, that perform moves under the Allied name and its interstate operating authority. The agents handle local sales, packing, warehousing, and labor in their own territories, while the van line organization coordinates interstate dispatch, standards, and documentation. Allied is therefore a network brand rather than a single company that owns all of its trucks and crews.

What Kind of Move the Van Line Model Handles

Structurally, Allied belongs to the full-service moving category. In a van line move, crews employed by local agents perform packing, loading, transport, and unloading, and the customer does not drive equipment or load containers. The agent network is organized around long-distance work: a booking agent arranges the shipment, an origin agent services the household, the goods travel under the van line's federal operating authority, and a destination agent completes delivery. Because SIRVA is a relocation services company, the Allied network also connects to corporate relocation programs, military and government moves, and international shipping handled through the same corporate family. This is a different structural category from truck rental, where the customer supplies the labor and driving, and from container or freight-trailer services, where the customer loads equipment that the company transports. Individual Allied agents also perform local and intrastate moves in their own areas, so the brand appears in both local and interstate contexts.

How Allied Differs From Other Van Lines

Allied's structural distinctions within the van line category center on its ownership history and corporate parent. It began in 1928 as a cooperative owned by member agents, converted to a conventional share company in 1968, and since the 1999 merger with North American Van Lines has operated under SIRVA, a relocation services corporation. That makes Allied and North American sister brands with a shared parent but separate agent networks and identities, a mirror of the arrangement at UniGroup, which owns United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit. The SIRVA relationship situates Allied inside a company whose business extends beyond household moving into corporate relocation management, whereas UniGroup is a holding company owned by its affiliated agents and senior management. Allied is headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, in the Chicago area, while its sibling North American is based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. These are differences of ownership and organization, not assessments of service quality.