The ACORD 25 Has Five Lines That Matter. Most Brokers Read Zero of Them.

A broker I know moved about $4M a month in temperature-controlled freight. She had a carrier packet process. She required a current COI before every carrier hit her approved list. She wasn't sloppy. In March 2025, a reefer carrying $318,000 in pharmaceutical product broke down and the load was a total loss. The carrier's cargo policy had expired six weeks before the pickup. The expiration date was right there on the ACORD 25. She'd received it, filed it, and never actually looked at it.

The lawsuit hasn't been resolved yet, but the carrier's assets are minimal and the broker is now on the hook for an argument she thought she'd already answered.

The certificate of insurance—the ACORD 25—is the most collected and least understood document in freight brokering. Every broker requires one. Most brokers treat it as proof that a carrier has insurance. It isn't that. It's a snapshot of what a carrier's policy information looked like when the agent printed it, and it carries a disclaimer right on its face that says it's for informational purposes only and confers no rights on the certificate holder. That disclaimer isn't boilerplate you skip. It's telling you something: the document is a starting point, not a finish line.

The five lines that actually carry intelligence on an ACORD 25—and the five that don't—are not the same lines most brokers think they are.

The Named Insured

Start here. The named insured on the certificate needs to match the legal entity tied to the carrier's MC number exactly. Not "approximately." Not "close enough." If the MC is issued to "Martinez Brothers Transport LLC" and the ACORD 25 shows "Martinez Brothers Trucking," that's a different legal entity, and when a claim is filed, that discrepancy will be used to deny coverage. Carriers rename, restructure, spin off subsidiaries, and sometimes operate under a DBA that they use interchangeably with their legal name. FMCSA's SAFER database shows the exact legal name on the operating authority. Compare it character by character.

This sounds pedantic until you're the one sitting across from a claims adjuster who's explaining why coverage doesn't apply.

The Insurer's NAIC Code and Admitted Status

The certificate shows the name of the insuring company. Most brokers scan it, see a name that sounds legitimate, and move on. The name alone tells you almost nothing.

What matters: is this insurer admitted in the carrier's state of domicile? And what's their AM Best financial strength rating?

You can look up any insurer's NAIC code and admitted status at your state's department of insurance website, and AM Best ratings are public at ambest.com. You're looking for at minimum a B+ rating, and ideally A- or better. Surplus lines carriers—non-admitted insurers—aren't illegal, but they have fewer consumer protections and their policies can be harder to enforce in certain states. A carrier running on a surplus lines cargo policy is not the same as one running on an admitted, rated insurer.

I've seen certificates from insurance companies that AM Best rates B- or that have had their license suspended in the carrier's home state. The carrier doesn't always know. They got a cheap premium and signed the paper.

The Cargo Policy Dates—Both of Them

The effective date and the expiration date are two separate fields. Both matter. Brokers look at the expiration date—sometimes. They almost never verify the effective date.

Why does the effective date matter? If you're tendering a load and the policy went into effect yesterday on a carrier you've been using for eight months, that's a flag. It means their prior policy either lapsed or they switched carriers. Both of those things create a gap in coverage that you need to understand before you put freight on the truck.

49 CFR Part 387 requires motor carriers to maintain continuous financial responsibility. That means the policy can't lapse. When it does and is reinstated, FMCSA's L&I system will show the gap. The ACORD 25 won't. Which brings me to the next point.

The expiration date on the ACORD 25 is a snapshot. It was accurate when the agent printed it. If the carrier missed a premium payment two months later, you won't find that out from your copy of the certificate. This is why checking FMCSA's L&I system at the time of tender is not optional. L&I shows the active financial responsibility filing status in real time. The ACORD 25 does not.

The Cargo Coverage Limit and What It Covers

The ACORD 25 has a section for inland marine coverage, which is where cargo shows up. You're looking at two things: the limit and the exclusions.

The limit needs to match your freight. A $100,000 cargo limit on a carrier you're using for high-value electronics or pharmaceutical freight is not adequate coverage. If you're moving a load with a declared value of $340K and the carrier's policy caps at $100K, you have $240K of exposed freight and a broker error-and-omissions problem. Under 49 CFR § 387.9, the federal minimums for cargo don't actually require much—they're designed for the minimum, not for your customer's load. The commercial reality is that you need to know what the carrier's limit is and whether it's sufficient for the specific freight type you're tendering.

The exclusions matter too, but they won't be on the ACORD 25 itself—they're in the actual policy. If you're moving refrigerated product and you want to know whether breakdown-related spoilage is covered, you need the policy endorsements, not the certificate. Most brokers don't ask for those. They should.

The Cancellation Notice Clause

Bottom of the form, easy to miss: the automatic cancellation notice period. Standard is 30 days written notice to the certificate holder if the policy is cancelled. Some policies say 10 days. Some—and this is the one that stings—say the insurer "will endeavor to mail" notice, which is not the same as guaranteeing it.

If your carrier's policy gets cancelled and you have a 30-day notice clause, you theoretically have time to pull them off your active loads before coverage evaporates. If the clause is 10 days, or if it's a non-guaranteed endeavor language, your window is shorter or nonexistent. This is particularly relevant for carriers who are financially stressed—exactly the ones most likely to have a policy cancellation—because a missed premium can trigger cancellation faster than any notice reaches you.

The notice clause doesn't protect you from a carrier who lets coverage lapse quietly. It only matters if the insurer actually sends the notice and you actually receive it. Build in your own monitoring process rather than relying on a paper agreement to save you.

The Five Lines That Don't

For completeness: the "additional insured" checkbox, the certificate holder's name and address, the general liability section, the agent's contact information at the bottom, and the umbrella/excess section if listed—none of these tell you what most brokers think they do.

The additional insured checkbox is widely misunderstood. Being listed as an additional insured on a motor carrier's liability policy doesn't mean the carrier's insurer will cover you for your own negligence. It means you're extended certain rights under the policy for claims arising out of the named insured's operations. In practice, post-Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II this matters less than brokers hope, because the negligence being alleged is the broker's own: selecting a dangerous carrier. The carrier's policy doesn't reach that.

The general liability section is irrelevant for cargo or liability claims arising from trucking operations. That's covered under commercial auto and cargo. If you're evaluating a trucking company, you're looking at commercial auto limits, not GL.

The agent's contact information is useful for getting another copy of the certificate. It's not a substitute for verifying the underlying policy status.

The BMC-91 vs the ACORD 25

There's a separate document that most brokers barely know exists: the BMC-91 or BMC-91X endorsement. This is the actual financial responsibility filing that a carrier's insurer submits to FMCSA. The ACORD 25 is an internal document produced by the insurance agent. The BMC-91 is the legal instrument that ties the carrier's policy to their federal operating authority.

When FMCSA's L&I system shows a carrier's insurance as active, it's because the insurer has filed a BMC-91 and has not filed a cancellation notice (BMC-35 or BMC-36). The ACORD 25 doesn't trigger any of that. A carrier can hand you an ACORD 25 that looks current while their BMC-91 has a pending cancellation notice in the FMCSA system that nobody's told you about.

This is why real-time L&I verification at the time of tender is the verification. The ACORD 25 is administrative paperwork.

Where the Vetting Breaks Down

The way most brokers handle this: they require the ACORD 25 during carrier onboarding, file it, and then reference the same document for months or years. The certificate expires and they request a new one. Nobody checks the underlying policy status between requests.

The carrier in my friend's situation had valid insurance at onboarding. Between onboarding and the loss date, they switched insurers. The new policy had a lapse. Her file showed a certificate with the prior carrier's information, which was accurate when issued and entirely wrong at the time of loss.

The only way to catch that is to check L&I at or near the time of tender—not just at onboarding, not just when the certificate expires, but when the load moves.

How I Document This

When I add a carrier to an approved list, I pull the ACORD 25 and log: (1) named insured verbatim vs. SAFER legal name, (2) cargo insurer name and NAIC code, (3) AM Best rating on that insurer, (4) cargo effective and expiration dates, (5) cargo limit vs. the types of freight I typically tender, and (6) cancellation notice clause language.

At the time of tender on any load, I run an L&I check and log the timestamp. If the carrier's insurance shows anything other than "Authorized," the load doesn't move until I have an explanation and a backup carrier staged.

When a post-Montgomery negligent-selection claim names your vetting process, that log is the difference between "we verified coverage" and "we received a document." Those aren't the same thing, and a plaintiff's attorney will make sure the jury understands the difference.

DOTScreener's carrier file logs the L&I check with a timestamp every time a carrier is screened. The ACORD 25 is stored in the carrier packet alongside it, but the real-time L&I result is what I rely on when a load is moving.

The ACORD 25 is not useless. It tells you who the insurer is, gives you the NAIC code for further research, and shows you the policy type and limits that were in place when the certificate was issued. That's worth knowing. It's just not the same as knowing the coverage is active right now.

Know the difference. It shows up in discovery.

— Mason Lavallet

Founder, DOTScreener.com