Cargo insurance vs liability — why the FMCSA record will not tell you if your freight is covered
Two different things get called "the carrier's insurance", and only one of them protects your freight.
Liability (BIPD)
Bodily Injury and Property Damage. Covers what the truck does to other people — their injuries, their vehicles, their property.
This is what FMCSA requires and enforces. The federal minimum for general freight is $750,000, and the filings cluster tightly:
| Limit | Filings |
|---|---|
| $750,000 | ~50,674 |
| $1,000,000 | ~24,982 |
| $5,000,000 | ~1,277 |
| $2,000,000 | ~1,051 |
If a loaded truck causes a serious accident, this is the policy that responds. It does nothing for the goods in the trailer.
Cargo
Covers your freight — the thing you actually care about.
Here is where the record stops being useful. Every cargo filing (BMC-34) in the data sits at exactly $5,000. All 3,567 of them.
That is not a coincidence and it is not a policy limit. It is the filing requirement, and FMCSA only requires cargo filings from household-goods carriers at all. Most general freight carriers carry real cargo coverage — commonly $100,000 — and it simply does not appear in the federal record.
What that means in practice
A carrier's FMCSA record cannot tell you whether your freight is covered.
- No cargo filing → says nothing. Cargo filings are not required for general freight
- A $5,000 cargo filing → says nothing about their actual policy
- A large liability figure → protects other people, not your load
If your load is worth more than $5,000, which it nearly always is, the federal record is the wrong place to look.
Where to actually verify cargo coverage
A certificate of insurance from the carrier's agent, naming you, obtained directly from the agent rather than forwarded by the carrier. That is the only document that speaks to cargo coverage, and it is outside FMCSA entirely.
Things worth reading on it:
- Limit — is it above the value of your load?
- Exclusions — many cargo policies exclude specific commodities, unattended vehicles,
reefer breakdown, or theft under certain conditions
- Deductible — a $25,000 deductible on a $30,000 claim is close to no coverage
- Effective dates — a certificate is a snapshot, and it ages
What the FMCSA record IS good for
Liability. On that it is authoritative and current, and it is the part with an enforcement mechanism behind it: cancel it and authority gets suspended.
So use each source for what it can answer:
| Question | Source |
|---|---|
| Can they legally haul? | FMCSA authority record |
| Are they carrying required liability? | FMCSA insurance filings |
| Is my freight covered? | Certificate of insurance from the agent |
| Is coverage still in force today? | Both — and re-check before you tender |
One thing the record does tell you about cargo
Cargo filings do get cancelled, and those cancellations are recorded — 229 cargo cancellations against 17,401 BIPD cancellations in the same period.
So if a carrier *does* carry a cargo filing and it lapses, that is visible. It is a narrow signal covering a minority of carriers, but it is not nothing.
The summary
Liability is what FMCSA enforces. Cargo is what you care about. They are not the same policy, and only one of them is in the public record.
Check liability in the filings. Check cargo with a certificate from the agent. Confirm both before the truck moves, because filings can be delayed or wrong and a certificate is only true on the day it was issued.