Carrier vetting checklist: 4 checks every freight broker has to document now

Why this checklist exists now

Post Montgomery v. Caribe Transport, the question a jury asks is not whether you got lucky. It is whether you took reasonable care at the moment you handed the load to a carrier. Reasonable care is shown by what you checked and what you wrote down. A checklist that you applied consistently to every carrier on every load is a defensible record. A checklist that you applied to most carriers most of the time is not.

You do not need a sophisticated process. You need a small set of checks, applied without exception, captured in a way you can produce a year later. Four is the right number. Fewer leaves a gap a plaintiff's lawyer will exploit. More is process burden your team will route around when things get busy.

Check 1: FMCSA safety rating

Every motor carrier with an active MC authority has one of four ratings from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: Satisfactory, Conditional, Unsatisfactory, or Not Rated. The rating sits in the FMCSA SAFER system, available free at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov.

Red flags

• Conditional rating. The carrier had compliance issues during their last safety audit. Booking a Conditional carrier is not automatically negligent, but it is now your job to explain why you did it anyway.
• Unsatisfactory rating. Indefensible. The carrier is legally prohibited from operating. If you book them, you are giving a plaintiff's lawyer the case.
• Not Rated for a high-value or high-risk load. New carriers with under 18 months of operating history are commonly Not Rated. That is not disqualifying by itself, but pair it with weak insurance or thin CSA history and the calculus changes.

What to capture

Pull the SAFER snapshot at the moment of booking. Save the page as a PDF with the timestamp visible. Note the rating verbatim. If the carrier is Conditional or Not Rated, write a one-line rationale for booking them anyway and save that with the file. The contemporaneous rationale is what turns a bad fact into a defensible decision.

Check 2: CSA scores

The Compliance, Safety, Accountability program tracks carrier performance across seven categories called BASICs. The two that matter most for negligent-hiring exposure are Unsafe Driving and Hours of Service Compliance. CSA data updates monthly. The public-facing percentile is on the FMCSA SMS website.

Red flags

• Alert status on Unsafe Driving (above the 65th percentile threshold). The plaintiff's lawyer will put this on a slide. You need to be able to explain why you booked.
• Alert status on Hours of Service. Drivers who run over hours fall asleep. Juries understand this.
• Crash Indicator data. Not publicly displayed at the carrier level since 2015, but if you can see it through a vetting tool, it matters.
• Vehicle Maintenance alerts. Less weight individually but corroborates a pattern when combined with the above.

What to capture

Screenshot or PDF the carrier's CSA scores page from FMCSA SMS at the moment of booking. Include all seven BASIC categories so it is clear you looked at the full picture, not just the ones that helped your decision. CSA data ages out monthly, so a snapshot you took six months ago is not the same as the data the carrier had on the day you booked them.

Check 3: Insurance currency and limits

FMCSA requires motor carriers of property to carry a minimum of $750,000 in primary auto liability. Many shippers and brokers require $1M. Some require $5M for hazmat or high-value loads. Insurance lapses happen. A carrier whose policy was canceled three weeks ago is still listed as authorized in SAFER. You have to look at the certificate.

Red flags

• Effective date in the past, expiration date passed. Stale certificate. Pull a current one before booking.
• Coverage below your customer's required minimum. Especially relevant when the shipper requires named additional-insured endorsements.
• Cargo coverage missing or below load value. Most brokers require $100K cargo as a baseline. High-value loads need more.
• Carrier whose insurance was canceled, then reinstated, then canceled again within the past 12 months. Pattern of lapses is its own red flag.

What to capture

Get the certificate of insurance directly from the carrier's agent, not from the carrier. Verify the agent against the issuing company's website. Save the PDF. Note the policy numbers, effective and expiration dates, primary auto liability limit, cargo limit, and any required endorsements. If your customer required named additional-insured status, capture proof that was actually added, not promised.

Check 4: Active operating authority

Operating authority is the legal permission to haul. A carrier suspended or revoked at the moment you booked them is indefensible. Authority status changes quickly. A carrier active on Tuesday may be revoked on Wednesday for failing to maintain insurance, paying their annual fees late, or filing safety violations. SAFER shows the current status; you need a snapshot of what it said when you booked.

Red flags

• Authority status: Not Authorized. End of the conversation. The carrier cannot legally do the load.
• Authority pending. A new carrier in the application window. Some brokers will not book pending authority at all. If you do, capture why and verify before tender.
• Authority restricted to specific load types or regions. Some carriers have property authority but no household-goods authority, or interstate but not intrastate authority. Match the authority to the load.
• Recent revocation followed by reinstatement. Pattern of compliance failures. Worth a closer look.

What to capture

Pull the carrier's authority record from SAFER or the FMCSA Licensing & Insurance system at booking time. Save the snapshot, note the authority type (property, household goods, passenger), status (active, pending, revoked, suspended), and any restrictions. Cross-check the MC number on the carrier's rate confirmation against what is in your record. Wrong MC numbers on rate cons are more common than they should be and they are the kind of detail plaintiffs build a case around.

The 5-minute extras worth doing

Four checks above are the floor. Three more take five minutes combined and tighten your record meaningfully.

1. Equipment match. Does the carrier's registered equipment type match what they are picking up the load with? A power-only carrier hauling a reefer load is a red flag. Verify the tractor and trailer at pickup.
2. Driver identity at pickup. Confirm the driver named on the rate confirmation is actually picking up the load. Double-brokering and identity fraud is rampant. A simple ID check at the dock saves you here.
3. Carrier verification phone call. Call the carrier at the phone number on FMCSA, not the number on the rate confirmation. Two-minute conversation, log it. Stops a meaningful fraction of fraud.

What to do with the record

You did the four checks. You have four PDFs, screenshots, and notes per carrier per load. What now?

First, store them somewhere immutable and time-stamped. A folder in Google Drive is fine if nobody can edit a file after it's uploaded. Better is a system that locks the record at the moment of capture and produces a signed audit log of changes. A spreadsheet with a date column is the worst option; the date is whatever the person typing it says it is.

Second, retain for a minimum of three years past the last load with that carrier. State statutes of limitations on personal-injury claims run two to six years depending on jurisdiction. Three years past last load covers most. Some brokers keep records seven years. Disk space is cheap. Demand letters are not.

Third, set up monitoring. The carrier you booked clean today may be revoked next month. Track changes to safety rating, CSA scores, insurance currency, and authority status on a weekly cadence for every active carrier. Log alerts. If you keep booking a carrier after their CSA went into alert and you can't show why, that is the discovery exhibit a plaintiff's lawyer dreams about.

The bottom line

Four checks, applied to every carrier, captured at booking, retained for years. That is the standard now. Brokers who set this up in the next 60 days will be in a different category from the ones who keep running on memory and habit. The work is not hard. The discipline of doing it every single time is.

That is exactly what VettedHaul automates. Pull the four checks with one click, lock the record at the moment of booking, monitor every carrier weekly, export a subpoena-ready evidence pack on demand. Join the waitlist to lock in founding-customer pricing.

Related reading

• Montgomery v. Caribe Transport, explained for freight brokers
• FMCSA SAFER carrier lookup
• FMCSA SMS — CSA scores by carrier
• FMCSA Licensing & Insurance system