How to read FMCSA insurance on file

FMCSA insurance on file means the agency has accepted a filing for that company. It does not mean your car is covered for its value. For a car hauler, the filing you should expect to find first is public liability for the truck. The cargo limit for the vehicle on the trailer is a different document. Read this as general information. The certificate and the contract control your shipment, and a lawyer is the person who applies them to a loss.

The filing the carrier must have before it rolls#

49 CFR 387.7 says no motor carrier shall operate a motor vehicle until it has obtained, and has in effect, the minimum levels of financial responsibility in 49 CFR 387.9. In the schedule opened on November 10, 2026, row (1) is for-hire carriage in interstate or foreign commerce, in a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,001 or more pounds, transporting nonhazardous property. The amount listed is 750,000 dollars.

That amount is public liability. 49 USC 13906(a)(1), in the 2023 U.S. Code edition, describes the security a motor carrier files so it can be registered: enough to pay, not more than the amount of the security, each final judgment for bodily injury or death resulting from the negligent operation, maintenance, or use of motor vehicles, or for loss or damage to property, with an exception the statute marks. The practical reading for a customer is this: the 750,000 dollars is about the truck causing harm. It is not a valuation of the car tied on the trailer.

Proof, under 49 CFR 387.7(d), is one of three things kept at the carrier's principal place of business:

• An MCS-90 endorsement, "Endorsement(s) for Motor Carrier Policies of Insurance for Public Liability Under Sections 29 and 30 of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980."
• An MCS-82, "Motor Carrier Surety Bond for Public Liability Under Section 30 of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980."
• A written FMCSA decision allowing the carrier to self-insure under 49 CFR 387.309, if it keeps a satisfactory safety rating.

49 CFR 387.7(e) says that proof is public information and shall be produced for review on a reasonable request by a member of the public. Ask the carrier for it. A screenshot of a website badge is not the endorsement.

What you are looking at on the federal screen#

The Licensing and Insurance carrier search is the public query by USDOT number or docket number. Use it after you have matched the legal name, as the authority check describes. When a result lists insurance, write down the form, the insurance company, the amount, and the date you looked. Those four items are the fact. "Insured" is not.

RideShipper's company check shows insurance on file from those federal records, with the date of the file. It will not show the word insured as if a liability filing covered the car. If the tool and the federal screen disagree, believe the federal screen you opened yourself, and tell us through the correction process.

Cargo insurance is the certificate, not this page#

49 USC 13906(a)(4) says the Secretary may require a registered motor carrier to file security sufficient to pay a shipper or consignee for damage to property placed in the carrier's possession. That is permission for a cargo-type filing. It is not a number for your car, and it does not name a form you can treat as "the" auto-transport cargo policy.

There is a dollar figure in an older cargo rule, and it is the wrong figure to memorize. 49 CFR 387.303(c) sets household-goods cargo security at 5,000 dollars for loss or damage to household goods on any one motor vehicle, and 10,000 dollars for household goods at any one time and place. The eCFR page for 387.303 carries an effective-date note: the section was suspended indefinitely (84 FR 51433, September 30, 2019, lifting an earlier suspension and then suspending the section again). 49 CFR 387.301, which is the section that required household-goods cargo filings, carries its own note that it was suspended effective January 14, 2017 (82 FR 5307). Do not tell yourself that FMCSA currently requires a 5,000 dollar cargo filing on a shipped car. Do not accept 5,000 dollars as "the legal limit" if your contract says something else.

The limit you can use is the one on the certificate of insurance the company gives you, copied into the contract you sign. Read:

• the cargo limit per vehicle
• the deductible, if the contract states one
• what is excluded (personal items in the car are a common contract exclusion; confirm it in your papers)
• whether the limit is the most the carrier will pay, sometimes called a released value, which is a contract choice and not a federal schedule for cars

If the certificate is silent, you do not have a cargo number yet. Ask before you pay. The coverage guide separates carrier cargo, your own auto policy, and any extra plan. Your auto policy is a question for your insurer, not a guess this page will make.

The broker bond is a third pile of money#

If the company is a broker, 49 CFR 387.307 requires a 75,000 dollar surety bond on form BMC-84 or a trust fund on form BMC-85. The section's eCFR page says it is effective January 16, 2026. The money pays shippers or motor carriers if the broker fails to carry out its contracts for the supplying of transportation by authorized motor carriers. It is not the MCS-90, and it is not cargo insurance. A broker can have a bond in force and still not be the company that insures the car. Get the carrier's certificate anyway. The broker bond term and the BMC-91X term are the short definitions. A liability form is not cargo insurance.

A short reading you can do on the phone#

1. "What form is on file with FMCSA, and what is the amount?" Write the answer.
2. "What is the cargo limit for my car, and what is the deductible?" Ask them to email the certificate.
3. "Is that same limit printed in the contract I am about to sign?"
4. If they answer with the 750,000 dollar liability figure, say: "That is the truck's public liability. I am asking about cargo on my car."

Then compare the certificate to the contract. Pay only when they match. RideShipper does not insure the vehicle and cannot raise the limit for you.