Freight Broker Carrier Vetting Checklist (Post-Montgomery 2026)

Why Vetting Matters More Than It Did Last Month

On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9–0 in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport IIthat federal law does not preempt state-court negligence claims against freight brokers for selecting unsafe carriers. The practical consequence is immediate: injured parties can now sue a broker in state court and argue the broker failed to exercise "ordinary care" when choosing who would haul the load. For a deeper breakdown of the ruling and what it changes, see our Montgomery ruling analysis.

Before Montgomery, most brokers relied on the FAAAA preemption defense to dismiss negligent-selection claims before they reached a jury. That shield is gone. Every carrier-selection decision you make is now discoverable evidence in litigation. If a plaintiff's attorney can show you dispatched a load to a carrier with lapsed insurance, a Conditional safety rating, and an out-of-service rate double the national average, the question a jury will ask is simple: why didn't you check?

The standard is not perfection. It is ordinary care — what a reasonable broker would do given the data available. The 12-point checklist below is built around publicly available FMCSA, SAFER, and MOTUS data that any broker can pull in minutes. Running these checks does not guarantee you will never face a claim, but it builds a documented record that you did what a reasonable broker should do.

The 12-Point Carrier Vetting Checklist

Each item below covers what to check, where to find it, and what should stop you from dispatching. You can run all 12 in a single lookup using our free carrier vetting tool, or check them individually through the sources listed.

1. Operating Authority Status

What to check: Confirm the carrier holds Active common or contract authority for interstate for-hire transportation. FMCSA publishes authority status separately for Common, Contract, and Broker authority types.

Red flags:Any status other than Active — Pending (not yet authorized to haul), Revoked (authority permanently pulled), Suspended (temporarily pulled, typically for insurance lapse or unpaid fines), or Not Authorized. Dispatching to a carrier without active authority is indefensible in court and may expose you to vicarious liability under Carmack.

2. Authority Age (90-Day New-Entrant Window)

What to check:How long the carrier's authority has been active. FMCSA's SAFER system shows the authority grant date.

Red flags:Authority granted within the last 90 days. New-entrant carriers are legitimate and most are honest owner-operators getting started. But the 90-day window is when the vast majority of double-brokering, fictitious-pickup, and identity-theft schemes operate — scammers register or hijack an MC, run a handful of loads, and vanish before FMCSA's new-entrant safety audit catches up. A new authority alone is not disqualifying, but it demands extra scrutiny on every other item in this checklist.

3. BIPD Insurance on File

What to check:The FMCSA LIFO (Licensing and Insurance Filing Online) database shows the dollar amount of public-liability insurance (Bodily Injury and Property Damage) the carrier's insurer has filed. The federal minimum is $750,000 for non-hazmat general freight, $1 million for hazmat loads under 10,001 lbs, and $5 million for certain hazmat classes.

Red flags: Zero BIPD on file or an amount below the applicable minimum. This means either the policy lapsed and the insurer notified FMCSA, or no policy was ever filed. There is no legitimate reason to dispatch freight to a carrier showing zero liability coverage.

4. Cargo Insurance on File

What to check: Cargo insurance coverage filed with FMCSA. While cargo insurance is not federally mandated for all carrier types, most broker-carrier agreements require it, and most shippers expect it. Standard minimums range from $100,000 to $250,000 depending on commodity.

Red flags: No cargo insurance on file combined with other flags (new authority, free webmail, area-code mismatch). A carrier with zero cargo coverage and zero BIPD is not a carrier you should be dispatching to under any circumstances.

5. BOC-3 Process Agent Filing

What to check:Whether the carrier has a BOC-3 blanket of coverage on file with FMCSA. The BOC-3 designates a process agent in every state where the carrier operates — the person who can accept legal documents on the carrier's behalf.

Red flags: No BOC-3 on file. Without a process agent designation, there is no legal mechanism to serve the carrier if a claim arises. A missing BOC-3 is also a compliance violation and a signal that the carrier may not be set up as a legitimate long-term operation.

6. FMCSA Safety Rating

What to check:The carrier's official safety rating from FMCSA's compliance review: Satisfactory, Conditional, or Unsatisfactory. Many smaller carriers are Unrated, meaning no review has occurred — this is not automatically a red flag.

Red flags: Unsatisfactory— the carrier is prohibited from operating. Dispatching to an Unsatisfactory-rated carrier is per se negligent. Conditional— the carrier has documented deficiencies and is under monitoring. A Conditional rating alone does not require rejection, but it should trigger a deeper review of CSA scores, OOS rates, and crash history before you proceed. For more on what safety ratings mean for your compliance score, see our audit score guide.

7. CSA BASIC Percentile Scores

What to check:The carrier's percentile rankings across all seven CSA BASICs: Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, and Hazardous Materials Compliance.

Red flags:Any BASIC above the intervention threshold — 65th percentile for general carriers, 50th percentile for passenger and hazmat carriers. An Unsafe Driving score above 65 means the carrier's drivers are accumulating more speeding, reckless driving, and seatbelt violations than 65% of comparable carriers. Multiple BASICs above threshold is a strong signal of systemic safety failures. A plaintiff's attorney will point to these scores and ask why you dispatched despite them.

8. Vehicle & Driver Out-of-Service Rates

What to check:The carrier's vehicle OOS rate and driver OOS rate compared to the national averages published by FMCSA. The national vehicle OOS rate is approximately 20%; the national driver OOS rate is approximately 6%.

Red flags:Rates significantly above the national average — 1.5x or higher is a watch item, 2x or higher is a serious concern. A carrier whose vehicles are pulled off the road at roadside inspections at twice the national rate has a maintenance or compliance problem that increases accident risk. Document the comparison explicitly in your vetting notes.

9. 24-Month Crash History and Fatal Crash Count

What to check:The total number of DOT-reportable crashes in the past 24 months and, separately, how many involved fatalities. FMCSA publishes these counts alongside the carrier's snapshot.

Red flags:Any fatal crash in the 24-month window demands careful evaluation. Multiple fatal crashes or a total crash count disproportionate to fleet size (e.g., a 5-truck carrier with 4 crashes) is a pattern, not bad luck. Post-Montgomery, a plaintiff will use this data to argue you should have known the carrier was unsafe.

10. MCS-150 Filing Freshness

What to check:The date of the carrier's last MCS-150 filing. Federal rules require biennial updates. The MCS-150 updates fleet size, driver count, mailing address, and contact information on file with FMCSA.

Red flags:An overdue MCS-150 means every data point on file — fleet size, driver count, address, phone — may be stale. The carrier may have grown from 2 trucks to 20, or shrunk from 20 to 0. An overdue filing is not disqualifying on its own, but it signals the carrier is not maintaining basic regulatory obligations, which matters when you are building a record of due diligence.

11. Contact Verification

What to check:Whether the carrier's listed phone number, email address, and physical address are consistent with their registered state and appear to belong to an actual operating business. Check whether the email domain is a registered business domain, free webmail (Gmail, Yahoo), or a disposable/throwaway provider. Check whether the phone area code corresponds to the carrier's state of registration.

Red flags:Disposable email domains (mailinator.com, guerrillamail.com, 10minutemail.com) are a hard reject — no legitimate carrier needs a self-destructing inbox. A phone area code from a different state than the registered address is a watch item when combined with new authority and free webmail. For the full breakdown of email and phone signals, see our carrier scam detection guide.

12. Cross-Pattern Analysis (Multiple Flags = Reject)

What to check:No single flag above proves a carrier is unsafe or fraudulent. The skill of vetting is reading the combination. After checking all 11 items above, count the flags.

Decision framework:

• Zero flags: Dispatch with confidence. Document the clean check.
• One flag (non-critical): Dispatch with a note in your file explaining why the flag was acceptable (e.g., new authority but insurance verified, business email, clean crash history).
• Two or more flags: Elevated risk. Require additional verification — call the carrier, verify insurance directly with the underwriter, confirm the physical address.
• Any hard-reject flag: Do not dispatch. Hard rejects include: Revoked/Suspended authority, Unsatisfactory safety rating, zero BIPD on file, disposable email domain.
• Three or more flags of any type: Reject. The combination is the signal, not the individual items.

How to Document Your Vetting (Building Your Legal Defense)

Running the checks is half the job. The other half is proving you ran them. In a post-Montgomery lawsuit, the plaintiff's attorney will request your carrier-selection records in discovery. What they are looking for is simple: did you check, and can you prove it?

For every carrier you vet, your file should contain:

1. Timestamp of the vetting check — date and time, not just a date. This ties your diligence to a specific dispatch decision.
2. Source data snapshot — screenshots or PDF exports of the FMCSA SAFER page, MOTUS record, and insurance filing at the time of the check. Data changes; your record must reflect what was available when you made the decision.
3. The specific data points reviewed — authority status, insurance amounts, safety rating, CSA scores, OOS rates, crash counts, MCS-150 date, contact details.
4. Flag identification — any items that triggered a watch or concern, and your reasoning for proceeding or rejecting.
5. Decision and approver — who made the dispatch decision, their name and role. If your brokerage has a compliance team, the approval chain matters.
6. Retention — keep vetting records for a minimum of three years. Some attorneys recommend five. Store them in a system where they cannot be retroactively altered.

If you use our carrier lookup tool, the results page is designed to be screenshot-friendly — all 12 checks on a single screen with timestamps. You can also store carrier records directly in your compliance hub.

Free Tools for Broker Vetting

You do not need a paid subscription to vet carriers. Every data point in the 12-point checklist above is available through free public sources:

• UC Bureau Carrier Lookup — runs all 12 checks in a single USDOT or MC lookup. Authority status, insurance verification, safety rating, CSA scores, OOS rates, crash history, MCS-150 freshness, and contact analysis on one screen.
• FMCSA SAFER System(safer.fmcsa.dot.gov) — the official FMCSA source for carrier snapshots, authority status, insurance on file, safety ratings, and inspection data.
• MOTUS (motus.dot.gov)— DOT's carrier profile API providing contact details including email, phone, officer names, and full addresses. No authentication required.
• CSA SMS (ai.fmcsa.dot.gov)— FMCSA's Safety Measurement System for BASIC percentile scores and inspection results.

Run a free carrier vet →

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to vet every carrier on every load?

There is no federal regulation that prescribes a specific vetting frequency. However, the Montgomery ruling established that brokers owe a duty of ordinary care in carrier selection. Ordinary care means checking what a reasonable broker would check before dispatching. If you last vetted a carrier six months ago and their insurance has since lapsed, you have a gap in your record. Best practice post-Montgomery is to run a fresh check before every dispatch, or at minimum verify that insurance and authority status have not changed since your last check. Automated monitoring tools can flag changes between dispatches.

What if the carrier is Unrated — can I still dispatch?

Yes. An Unrated safety rating simply means FMCSA has not conducted a compliance review of the carrier. Most small carriers and new-entrant operators are Unrated. It is not a negative mark. What matters is the totality of the data: are their CSA scores clean, is their OOS rate at or below the national average, is their insurance on file, is their authority active? An Unrated carrier with clean data across all other checks is a reasonable dispatch decision.

Can I be sued if the carrier I vetted passes all 12 checks and still causes an accident?

A lawsuit can always be filed. The question is whether it survives. If you documented a thorough vetting process showing the carrier passed all 12 checks at the time of dispatch, you have strong evidence that you exercised ordinary care. The Montgomery standard is not strict liability — brokers are not insurers of carrier safety. You are expected to check what is reasonably available. A well-documented clean vet is your best defense.

Does Montgomery apply to all loads or only interstate?

The Montgomery ruling specifically addresses the FAAAA preemption defense that brokers used against state-law negligence claims. Because the FAAAA governs interstate commerce, the ruling's direct impact is on loads that cross state lines. However, state-law negligence claims for intrastate loads were never preempted by the FAAAA in the first place — those claims already existed. The practical effect is that brokers now face potential liability in state court for both intrastate and interstate carrier-selection decisions.

What records should I keep and for how long?

Keep the full vetting snapshot (authority status, insurance amounts, safety rating, CSA percentiles, OOS rates, crash history, MCS-150 date, contact details), the timestamp of the check, the name of the person who approved the dispatch, and any notes explaining why flagged items were acceptable. The federal record-retention minimum for broker transaction records is three years, but given that personal-injury statutes of limitations vary by state (some extend to four or five years, and discovery rules can toll the clock), retaining vetting records for five years is the safer practice.