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Carrier Screening Checklist for Freight Brokers

Fifteen items every broker should verify before tendering a load to a motor carrier, ordered by how badly a missed check hurts you in litigation. Items 1 through 5 are non-negotiable. Items 6 through 12 are what courts now expect. Items 13 through 15 are the gold standard.

Tier 1: Non-negotiable (missing any one is near-automatic liability)

  1. Active operating authority. USDOT active, MC authority in Authorized status.
  2. Federal-minimum insurance on file. $750K BIPD for general freight, $1M for hazmat, with effective dates that cover the tender.
  3. No Unsatisfactory safety rating. Unsatisfactory means FMCSA has found the carrier unfit. Indefensible to tender.
  4. No active out-of-service order. An OOS order means FMCSA has ordered the carrier to stop operating.
  5. Not on your Do-Not-Use list. Tendering to a carrier you previously excluded is the worst document discovery can find.

Tier 2: Standard due diligence (what courts now expect)

  1. SMS BASIC alert status. Flag any category in Alert. Multiple alerts is escalation or rejection.
  2. Crash history (24 months). Any fatal crash requires documented justification for selection.
  3. OOS rates vs. national average. Driver OOS ~6.5%, Vehicle OOS ~20.7%. 2× or more is a red flag.
  4. Inspection history. Zero inspections in 24 months is a data gap you must acknowledge.
  5. Authority age. New carriers (under 18 months) crash at roughly 2× the rate of established peers.
  6. MCS-150 currency. Filings over 24 months stale render the rest of the carrier's data unreliable.
  7. Entity type verification. Broker-only authority means tendering to them is double-brokering.

Tier 3: Gold standard (strongest defense)

  1. Signed carrier safety attestation. Pre-trip inspection, driver fitness, valid CDL, HOS compliance, insurance currency, drug testing program.
  2. Certificate of insurance on file. Actual ACORD 25, not just the FMCSA filing.
  3. Broker sign-off. The rep who made the call signs that they personally reviewed the data.

The documentation that holds up

The checklist is the easy part. The hard part is producing the record years later, in deposition, in front of a jury, with a hash chain that proves it was created at the moment of tender — not reconstructed after the crash. DOTScreener runs every item above against live FMCSA data, captures a timestamped snapshot, collects the attestation through a cross-device portal, and produces a tamper-evident SHA-256-chained audit log. That is the file your defense counsel wants when the demand letter arrives.

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Frequently asked questions

What should a carrier screening checklist include?▾

At minimum: active operating authority, BIPD insurance at the federal minimum or higher, FMCSA safety rating not Unsatisfactory, no active out-of-service order, the carrier not on your own Do-Not-Use list, SMS BASIC alert status, 24-month crash history including fatal/injury/towaway counts, driver and vehicle OOS rates vs. national averages, inspection history, authority age, MCS-150 currency, entity-type verification (carrier vs broker authority), a signed carrier safety attestation, a current ACORD 25 certificate, and a broker sign-off with reasoning.

How often should I screen a carrier?▾

On every load. FMCSA data updates continuously — a carrier's authority can be revoked, insurance can lapse, and BASIC percentiles can change between loads. A screening file from three weeks ago does not prove what you reviewed at the moment you tendered today's load. The contemporaneous record is what wins cases.

What FMCSA data is publicly available?▾

All of it that matters: operating authority status, insurance filings (L&I database at data.transportation.gov), assigned safety rating, SMS BASIC alert status, inspection records, crash records, out-of-service rates, fleet size and operational data from MCS-150. Plaintiff's counsel will pull this data after a crash; you should pull it before tender.

Do I need to screen a carrier I've used a hundred times before?▾

Yes. A repeat carrier with an outstanding history is still subject to the same safety-data changes as any other carrier. The brokerages that lose the worst-positioned post-Montgomery cases are typically the ones that stopped screening 'trusted' carriers — and that trusted carrier had a fatal crash three months before the tender that the broker never noticed.

What is a Do-Not-Use list and why does it matter?▾

A Do-Not-Use list is your organization's record of carriers you have decided not to tender to, with a documented reason. After Montgomery, plaintiff discovery will specifically demand 'internal approval and do-not-use lists.' A broker that maintains one, applies it consistently, and never tenders to a listed carrier has a strong defense. A broker who silently un-listed a carrier just before tendering to them has a disastrous one.

Document your diligence on every load.

DOTScreener runs the checks in this article automatically and produces a timestamped, hash-chained record at the moment of tender.

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