Verifying a Carrier's Insurance in Five Minutes — Without Trusting a Screenshot

A broker friend of mine sent me a Slack message a few months back. Carrier had emailed him an ACORD 25 the same morning. Coverage looked fine — $1M auto liability, cargo at $100K, current effective date, expiration eight months out. He tendered the load. A week later the carrier had a wreck on I-40 and his email started filling up with the words every broker dreads: "we have no record of an active policy."

The ACORD he was sent was real. It had been real on the day it was issued — four months earlier. The carrier had emailed it as a screenshot and changed the dates in Preview before he forwarded it. Took maybe two minutes.

Here's the part that bothered me most when he told me the story. There was a free, public, government-run database he could have checked in another two minutes that would have shown the policy had been cancelled. He didn't know it existed. Most brokers don't.

The two sources that actually matter

Insurance verification for a carrier sits at two places. Knowing the difference is the whole job.

The first is **FMCSA Licensing & Insurance (L&I)** — the federal record of what insurance has been *filed with the agency on behalf of that carrier*. Live, public, no login. You can look up any active interstate motor carrier and see: who the insurer is, what filing form they're on (BMC-91 or 91X for liability, BMC-34/35 for cargo, BMC-84/85 for broker bond), the policy number, the effective date, and — critically — any cancellation effective date the insurer has filed.

The second is the **ACORD 25 certificate of insurance** — the document the carrier or its agent issues that names a specific certificate holder (you), shows current coverages and limits, and lists effective and expiration dates. This is the snapshot.

These do different jobs. L&I tells you what coverage the carrier *has on file with the federal government right now*. The ACORD 25 tells you what coverage *the agent says applies to this particular relationship*. A real diligence check uses both. Most brokers use the screenshot alone.

The two-minute L&I check

Go to li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov, pick "Carrier Search," and put in the DOT number. Open the carrier record. You'll see Insurance Filings — usually three or four rows. Look for:

• Form 91 or 91X (BIPD/Primary liability). This is the big one. Federal minimum is $750K for general freight under 49 CFR § 387.9 — but the load you're tendering probably requires $1M because that's what your shipper agreements say. Note the **insurer name**, the **effective date**, and whether there's a **cancellation effective date in the future**. If there is, the policy is on its way out the door and you're about to be the broker who put a load on a carrier whose insurance is days from lapsing.
• Form 34 or 35 (cargo). Not federally required for general freight, but it's what gets you paid if there's a $150,000 theft. Coverage minimums and exclusions vary; an ACORD says "$100,000" but the underlying policy might exclude electronics or have a $5,000 deductible per occurrence.
• Date the filing was posted. A liability filing from 2017 with no cancel date and no recent re-filing is a yellow flag. Insurers file when policies renew. If the last activity is years old, ask why.

This whole pull is maybe ninety seconds once you've done it a few times. If you screen a lot of carriers, the FMCSA QCMobile API will give you the same data programmatically.

Now the ACORD 25

The L&I record tells you the policy exists with the federal government. It does *not* tell you the policy is in force today on your specific load. For that you want the certificate. Five lines on an ACORD matter, in this order:

Producer. The agency issuing the certificate. Call them. I'm serious — the phone number is on the form. If a carrier gives you a "current" COI that's actually doctored, the easiest way to find out is to dial the agent listed on the document and say "I'm a broker about to tender a load, can you confirm this certificate is accurate as of today and that the policy is in good standing." Real agents say yes in twenty seconds. Doctored COIs fall apart on this call because either the number isn't real or the agent doesn't recognize the carrier.

Insured. This must be the carrier's legal name as it appears on FMCSA — not a DBA, not the carrier's owner-operator name, not a slightly different LLC. A common chameleon-carrier trick is to send a COI in the name of a different legal entity that happens to share a few letters. If the L&I record shows "BLUE RIDGE FREIGHT LLC" and the ACORD says "BLUE RIDGE LOGISTICS LLC," that's not the same company. Stop.

Coverages and limits. Auto Liability single-limit at $1M minimum for general freight. Cargo Legal Liability at whatever your shipper agreement says (usually $100K for general, higher for high-value). Also check the *effective* and *expiration* dates — but only after you've called the producer, because doctored dates are the most common forgery.

Certificate Holder. This must be your brokerage, named correctly, with your address. Carriers sometimes send a generic COI listing themselves or "to whom it may concern." If you're not on it, it doesn't bind anything to you.

Description of Operations. Optional but useful. Some agents will list specific endorsements, deductibles, or named coverages here. This is where you'll occasionally find "MCS-90 endorsement" called out — the federal endorsement that pays a third party when the underlying policy excludes the loss. Worth noticing.

A concrete scenario

You're tendering a load of consumer electronics, $185K declared. Carrier is MC-1247893 / DOT-3567102. Eighteen months in business. They email you a COI.

Two-minute L&I pull says: Form 91X liability filed by GREAT WEST CASUALTY, effective 09/14/2025, no cancellation on file. Form 34 cargo filed by CANAL INSURANCE, effective 09/14/2025, no cancellation. Filed at $1M auto / $100K cargo.

ACORD they sent says: Auto Liability $1M (matches L&I), Cargo $100K (matches L&I), expiration 09/14/2026 (consistent with a one-year policy from 09/14/2025).

You're 90% there. The remaining 10% is the phone call to GREAT WEST CASUALTY's listed producer to confirm the certificate is real, the policy is in good standing as of today, and you're listed as certificate holder. That call takes three minutes. Skip it and you're betting your file against a PDF anyone can edit.

Now flip the scenario. Same load, same carrier, same email. L&I pull shows the Form 91X cancellation effective date is **05/22/2026**. That's four days from now. The carrier still has a "current" COI. It will not be current next week. You're about to put a load on a carrier whose insurance is filed-to-cancel.

This is exactly the gap that a plaintiff's lawyer pulls into a broker file during discovery. The carrier had a wreck, the insurance was lapsing, and you tendered anyway because you only looked at the screenshot.

The regulation, in plain English

49 CFR § 387.7 is the federal rule that requires every interstate motor carrier of property to maintain a minimum level of BIPD insurance and to keep that filing on record with FMCSA. § 387.301 sets the broker financial responsibility separately (the BMC-84 or BMC-85 bond — a different post). The carrier's filing is *the* federal evidence of insurance. When that filing has a cancellation effective date in the next 30 days, FMCSA itself is on notice — and so are you the second you check.

What this means at load-tender time: an L&I pull is part of your reasonable-diligence file, full stop. After *Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II* (Supreme Court, May 14, 2026), the FAAAA no longer shields brokers from state negligent-selection claims. Plaintiffs' lawyers will absolutely subpoena your carrier files, and the question they want to ask in deposition is: "Did you verify the insurance was in force, or did you trust a PDF?"

How I document this

Three artifacts go in every carrier file before tender:

1. **The L&I record at lookup time.** A screenshot or saved JSON of the FMCSA L&I result showing the filing form, insurer, policy number, effective date, and any cancellation flag. Timestamped.

2. **The ACORD 25** as sent by the carrier. Stored as-is, not edited.

3. **A note documenting the producer call.** Who I called, who I spoke to, what they confirmed, the time. One line is enough — "Called GW Casualty producer at 8:42am, confirmed policy active for MC-1247893, certificate holder added."

If something goes wrong on the load, those three artifacts are the file my lawyer wants. They take five minutes to assemble.

Skip any one of them and you've turned an objective compliance check into a subjective "I trusted the document" defense. After Montgomery, that's not a defense.

— Mason Lavallet

Founder, DOTScreener.com

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Sources

• [FMCSA Licensing & Insurance Public Search](https://li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov/) — official L&I lookup
• [49 CFR § 387.7 — Financial responsibility, motor carriers of property](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-III/subchapter-B/part-387)
• [FMCSA Insurance Filing Requirements](https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/registration/insurance-filing-requirements) — overview of BMC-91, 91X, 34, 35
• [Hanson Bridgett — Supreme Court Unanimously Holds Negligent-Hiring Claims Against Freight Brokers Survive FAAAA Preemption](https://www.hansonbridgett.com/publication/260514_8509_supreme-court-faaaa)
• [ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance — Form Reference](https://www.acord.org/forms-and-products)