Your COI Says Active. FMCSA's L&I Database Says Something Else. Now What?

Three weeks before the accident, the carrier handed the broker a clean COI. Zurich letterhead. $1M auto liability, $100K cargo. Policy number printed right there on page one. The broker scanned it, dropped it in the carrier packet, and covered the load. Standard practice.

What the broker didn't check was the FMCSA Licensing & Insurance database. If they had, they would have seen that Zurich had filed a cancellation notice on that policy 47 days earlier. The carrier had a new policy with a smaller insurer — which may or may not have had a BMC-91 on file with FMCSA at the time the load moved.

The accident was a rear-end collision on I-65 near Louisville. A guy on a motorcycle. Traumatic brain injury. The plaintiff's lawyer subpoenaed the carrier packet on day one. The L&I discrepancy became the centerpiece of the negligent selection claim. Post-Montgomery, the broker had no preemption shield.

That scenario isn't hypothetical. It's a pattern. And the reason it keeps happening is that most brokers treat a COI as the end of the insurance verification story, when it's actually just the beginning.

Two Sources. Different Things.

The COI — an ACORD 25, usually — is a document the carrier's insurer or broker produces on demand. It's a snapshot of what was true on the date it was issued. The instant the carrier gets it, it starts aging. Policies get cancelled, riders change, coverage limits get restructured. The COI knows none of that after it's printed.

FMCSA's L&I database (accessible through SAFER or directly at li.fmcsa.dot.gov) shows the active insurance filings on record with FMCSA. When a motor carrier wants to operate in interstate commerce, their insurer must file a Form BMC-91 (for auto liability, essentially) with FMCSA. When that policy is cancelled, the insurer is supposed to file a Form BMC-91X — the cancellation notice. The L&I database reflects those filings, not the underlying policy directly.

So there are two different systems tracking two different things. The COI shows what the carrier's insurer vouched for on a specific date. L&I shows what has actually been filed with FMCSA and whether any cancellation notice followed it. They can — and do — diverge.

Why They Diverge

Cancellation notice lag. Under 49 CFR § 387.31, when a policy subject to FMCSA filing requirements is cancelled, the insurer must provide 30 days' written notice to FMCSA before the cancellation takes effect (35 days for non-payment). The carrier may still be showing you a COI from the original policy while their insurer has already initiated the cancellation process and the BMC-91X is sitting in the FMCSA queue, waiting to be processed.

In practice, the gap between "insurer files BMC-91X" and "cancellation shows up in L&I" can be a day or two. The gap between "carrier's policy lapses" and "carrier tells their broker to get you a new COI" can be weeks — or never.

The stale COI problem. A lot of carriers hand brokers the same COI they generated six months ago. There's nothing stopping them. The ACORD 25 doesn't auto-expire. If you don't notice the issue date buried in the header — and most brokers scan for policy limits, not dates — you can miss a carrier who switched insurers twice since that document was created.

I've seen COIs dated in November that carriers were still circulating the following April. Their L&I showed an entirely different insurer with a lower liability limit. The carrier had changed policies, the new insurer had filed a BMC-91, but the old COI was still floating around the carrier's email as their "standard packet."

The dual-policy scenario. Some carriers maintain separate policies for different operations — one for regular dry van runs, one for a small refrigerated fleet. The L&I might show one policy's filing while the COI covers a different one. Neither is necessarily wrong; they're just not the same thing. A broker who doesn't notice is potentially using a carrier on a load that falls outside the policy shown in L&I.

The cargo gap. Cargo coverage is almost never filed with FMCSA. BMC-91 covers auto liability — bodily injury and property damage. The L&I won't tell you whether the carrier's cargo policy is active or cancelled. For cargo verification, you're stuck with the COI and the carrier's insurance agent. Which means a clean L&I tells you nothing about cargo exposure.

Which One Wins

For public liability coverage, L&I is the source of truth — with caveats.

The whole point of the BMC-91 filing requirement is to create a guarantee mechanism. Under 49 CFR § 387.15, the insurer's obligation to cover a claim runs directly to injured members of the public, regardless of policy disputes between the carrier and the insurer. In theory, even if the carrier's policy lapses, the insurer remains on the hook until FMCSA processes the BMC-91X cancellation.

That's what the MCS-90 endorsement formalizes. Every FMCSA-registered motor carrier is supposed to have an MCS-90 endorsement on their auto liability policy. It extends coverage to the public as a condition of operating authority. The MCS-90 doesn't cancel the moment the underlying policy does — there's a mandated 30-day notice window.

But here's the thing: you can't rely on that protection as a broker. If the carrier moves a load with lapsed insurance — even technically covered under the MCS-90 notice period — and there's an accident, plaintiff's counsel will argue you knew or should have known the insurance was questionable. The FMCSA L&I is publicly available. You had every opportunity to check it. A pending cancellation notice is not coverage you can count on.

So: when L&I shows clean, you're in reasonable shape on the public liability question (with the usual data lag caveats — FMCSA databases aren't always real-time). When L&I shows a gap or recent cancellation and the COI shows active, do not move the load until you've resolved the discrepancy.

The Resolution Workflow

When L&I and COI tell different stories, there's one correct next step: call the insurer directly. Not the carrier. Not the carrier's agent. Call the number on file for the insurance company and ask them to verbally confirm active coverage, the policy number, the effective dates, and whether any cancellation notice has been filed with FMCSA.

Document that call. Write down who you spoke with, their title, the date and time, what they confirmed. If they can email a written confirmation, get it. That's what goes in the carrier packet alongside the COI.

This isn't paranoia — it's the specific difference between having documentation and having nothing. Under Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, a plaintiff now gets to argue in state court that your carrier selection was negligent. Resolving a COI/L&I discrepancy with a direct insurer call and documenting it is exactly the kind of step that shows your selection process was reasonable. Skipping it because the COI looked fine is exactly what plaintiff's counsel will argue you should not have done.

For a carrier like MC-1247893 / DOT-3821054 operating a 12-truck flatbed fleet on a $2.5M annual lane, I'd also want the insurance company to confirm the cargo coverage separately, because the L&I won't tell you that, the COI only shows what was true on the date it was issued, and flatbed freight with equipment loads or high-value industrial components can easily exceed a standard $100K cargo limit.

The Specific Reg

49 CFR § 387.31 governs the filing requirements for insurance by motor carriers. It requires that for-hire motor carriers (and some private carriers) maintain insurance in the amounts prescribed by Part 387, evidenced by filings with FMCSA. It also establishes the 30-day cancellation notice requirement for the insurer.

At load-tender time, this means: if you're using a for-hire carrier in interstate commerce, they are required by law to have a current BMC-91 filing on record with FMCSA. If FMCSA's L&I doesn't show one, that carrier should not be moving your freight regardless of what their COI says. The absence of a valid BMC-91 filing is itself a regulatory violation — and a serious one if there's an accident.

I want to be clear: I'm not a lawyer, and § 387.31 has nuances depending on carrier type, commodity, and operation. But for a standard dry van, flatbed, or temperature-controlled interstate carrier, a missing or recently cancelled BMC-91 with no replacement on file is a hard stop. The COI doesn't override that.

How I Document This

When I run an insurance check on a carrier, here's the paper trail I create:

I run L&I first, not last. I screenshot the L&I result with the carrier's MC number visible, the date and time of the check visible, and the policy information on screen. This takes 90 seconds.

Then I review the COI for issue date. If it's more than 60 days old, I request a fresh one. If the policy numbers on the COI and in L&I don't match — different insurer, different policy number, anything that doesn't line up — I call the insurer to resolve it before the load ships.

When I make that call, I log: carrier name, MC number, insurer name, rep name, date, time, what they confirmed. "Confirmed active auto liability policy [number], effective [date] through [date], no pending cancellation notice on file with FMCSA." Done. That goes in the file.

Cargo coverage: separate call if the load warrants it, or I reference the ACORD 25 cargo section with the understanding that I can't independently verify current status beyond the issue date. For any load over $150K replacement value, I call the insurer on cargo too.

This whole process — from L&I screenshot to confirmed call — takes maybe 10 minutes when there's a discrepancy. It's the single most defensible documentation step you can take, because it shows you didn't just accept the paper at face value. You verified. You asked the question. You wrote it down.

The broker in that Louisville accident didn't do that. The COI looked fine, and they moved on. That was the mistake.

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— Mason Lavallet

Founder, DOTScreener.com