Carrier Compliance

Carrier compliance is the continuous process of ensuring that every carrier hauling your freight meets regulatory requirements and your company's own risk standards. It goes beyond the initial onboarding check – compliance is a living requirement that must be monitored as long as a carrier remains in your network. A carrier that was fully compliant six months ago may have had their authority revoked, let insurance lapse, or accumulated critical safety violations since then.

The core compliance elements include active FMCSA operating authority – either common or contract – with no pending revocation or suspension, auto liability and cargo insurance meeting your contractual minimums with current certificates of insurance on file, an acceptable DOT safety rating (satisfactory or unrated, since conditional or unsatisfactory ratings indicate systemic safety issues), CSA scores within your risk tolerance across key BASICs like unsafe driving, vehicle maintenance, and driver fitness, and compliance with any commodity-specific requirements like hazmat endorsements or food-grade sanitation for cold chain freight.

The stakes of compliance failures are severe. If an uninsured or unauthorized carrier causes an accident while hauling your freight, the shipper – or the broker who arranged the load – may face direct liability. Retailers and large shippers increasingly audit their vendors' carrier compliance programs, and a single lapse can jeopardize major customer relationships. In food and beverage, FSMA regulations add another compliance layer, requiring carriers to meet specific sanitation and temperature-control standards.

Automated compliance monitoring platforms that continuously check carrier credentials against FMCSA databases and insurance provider records have become essential for any shipper managing more than a handful of carriers. The alternative – manually checking every carrier before every load – simply doesn't scale.