How to check a carrier’s authority and insurance before you tender a load

When a load goes wrong, two questions decide who pays: was the carrier allowed to haul it, and was there insurance behind it. Both are answered by filings the carrier made with FMCSA, and both are public. This is the checklist for reading those filings before you tender, in the order that finds problems fastest, with the federal minimums and the traps in each step.

Where the filings live: FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance system (L&I) holds authority and insurance; SAFER holds safety and fleet data. The HauLens carrier lookup shows both on one page. If you are new to the record, start with how to look up an MC number; this guide assumes you have the record open.

1. Operating authority: status, type, and date

Operating authority is FMCSA's permission to transport regulated freight for hire in interstate commerce. The record lists each authority the company has applied for, with its current status.

• Status must be Active. Pending means applied for and not granted; the carrier may not haul for hire yet. Inactive, Revoked or Withdrawn means it may not haul for hire at all. Authority is most often revoked because the insurance filing lapsed, which is the next step for a reason.
• Type must match the freight. "Motor Carrier of Property (Except Household Goods)" is the one for truckload and LTL freight. Household goods is a separate authority. Passenger authority is not freight. Broker authority is permission to arrange transportation, not to perform it: a company that only holds broker authority and offers to haul your load will re-broker it.
• Read the date the authority was granted. Authority under a year old is not a fault, but it is the profile most often used in fraud, because there is no history to contradict the story. New authority earns a call to the phone number on FMCSA's file and a smaller first load.
• Look at the history, not just the current line. A docket that was revoked and reinstated, or a company whose earlier docket was revoked before a new one was granted, has a story. Ask for it.

2. Liability insurance: the BMC-91 filing

Before FMCSA grants authority, and for as long as the carrier holds it, the carrier's insurer must file proof of public liability coverage with FMCSA. That filing is what shows on the record.

• Form BMC-91 means one insurer carries the whole amount. BMC-91X means the amount is split across more than one policy or insurer. Either is fine.
• The minimum depends on the freight. For general freight in vehicles over 10,001 pounds it is $750,000. Oil and certain hazardous materials require $1,000,000. The most dangerous hazmat classes, such as explosives and poison gas, require $5,000,000. Non-hazardous freight in vehicles under 10,001 pounds requires $300,000.
• A filing at exactly the minimum is legal but thin. Many shippers require $1,000,000; check your customer's requirement before you book, not after.
• The insurer on file must be the insurer on the certificate. The carrier will send a certificate of insurance. Compare the insurer's name and the policy number with FMCSA's filing. A certificate from a different insurer, or one FMCSA has never heard of, is the most common forged document in freight.
• Get the certificate from the agent, not the carrier. Call the insurance agent named on the certificate, at a number you found yourself, and have them confirm the policy is in force and send it directly. It takes five minutes and defeats every edited PDF.

3. Cargo insurance: what FMCSA does not require

This is the step brokers most often get backwards. FMCSA requires a cargo insurance filing (form BMC-34) only from household goods carriers and freight forwarders. For general freight, cargo coverage is a matter between the carrier, its customers and its insurer. So:

• A general freight carrier with no cargo filing on the FMCSA record is not breaking any rule. You still want cargo coverage; you get proof of it from the certificate, not from FMCSA.
• The common amount is $100,000 per occurrence. Higher-value freight needs a higher limit or a declared-value endorsement, agreed before pickup.
• Read the exclusions. Cargo policies routinely exclude unattended vehicles, theft from an unlocked trailer, reefer breakdown without a separate endorsement, and specific commodities such as electronics, tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals. A $100,000 policy that excludes your commodity is a $0 policy for your load.
• Ask about the deductible. A $10,000 deductible on a $12,000 claim tells you who is really insuring the load.

4. Pending cancellations

When an insurer decides to cancel a carrier's liability policy, it notifies FMCSA ahead of the cancellation date. The record then shows the filing with an end date. If no replacement filing arrives before that date, FMCSA revokes the authority.

• A pending cancellation on a carrier you are about to book is a stop sign. Either the carrier is switching insurers, and can prove the new policy in one phone call, or the carrier is about to be uninsured.
• Most end dates on the record are not lapses. Insurers file replacements and corrections constantly, and a policy that ends the day a new one begins is just a renewal. The signal is an end date still ahead with no replacement behind it.
• Check again before each load. A carrier vetted in March can be cancelled in July. The HauLens record shows a cancellation only while it is still ahead, so a warning on the page means something today.

5. Out of service orders and suspensions

• An out of service order in effect means the carrier may not operate. Not "should not": may not. There is nothing to discuss until it is rescinded.
• A suspension or revocation notice served by FMCSA gives a date on which the authority will be suspended unless the cause, usually an insurance lapse, is fixed. If the date has passed and the authority still reads active, the cause was fixed. If the date is ahead, ask.
• An imminent hazard order is rare and final. Walk away.

6. Safety: rating, out of service rates, crashes

• Safety rating. Most carriers have none, because FMCSA rates a carrier only after a compliance review. Satisfactory is good. Conditional means a review found deficiencies; it is legal to use a conditional carrier, and some shippers forbid it. Unsatisfactory means the carrier is prohibited from operating.
• Out of service rates. The share of roadside inspections in the last 24 months that put the vehicle or the driver out of service. National averages run around 22 percent for vehicles and 7 percent for drivers. Well above both on a real number of inspections is a maintenance and hours-of-service problem you will meet on your load.
• Crashes. The record counts reportable crashes over 24 months, split by fatal, injury and tow-away. Read them against fleet size: five crashes for a five-truck carrier and five for a five-hundred-truck carrier are different facts.

7. The process agent (BOC-3)

Every carrier with authority must have a process agent on file in each state, on form BOC-3, so it can be served with legal papers. It costs the carrier almost nothing and is required before authority is granted, so a record without one usually means an application that never finished. It is a one-second check and it occasionally catches a company that is "about to get its authority".

8. Match the record to the email

Everything above describes the company. None of it proves that the person who emailed you works there. Before you send the rate confirmation:

• The legal name in the record matches the name in the email signature, the certificate and the rate confirmation.
• The email domain belongs to that company and is not a lookalike registered last month.
• The phone number FMCSA has on file answers to the same company, and whoever picks up knows about the quote.
• Any change to payment details, a factoring company or a remit-to address arrives by a route you can verify, never just by reply.

HauLens runs the record and the sender check inside Gmail for every carrier email, so this step happens before you finish reading the message rather than after you have booked.

When to call and when to walk

Call when the record is complete and one thing is odd: new authority, a cancellation with a plausible renewal story, a conditional rating with a date years ago, a fleet size that does not match the offer. Most odd things have boring explanations, and the call is how you get one.

Walk when the record contradicts the email: a different legal name, no active authority, no liability filing, an out of service order, or a certificate whose insurer is not the one FMCSA has. No rate is good enough to argue with a filing.

Every figure in this guide is a federal minimum or an FMCSA field, checked against the public record when it was last updated. It is practical guidance for brokers, not legal advice.