Trucking insurance filings and all.

Trucking sits apart from ordinary commercial auto because a federal or state regulator is watching. Interstate carriers operating under FMCSA authority must maintain minimum liability limits and have proof of that filed on their behalf. Get the placement wrong and the problem is not just an uninsured loss — it is authority that will not activate.

Filings, authority and minimum limits

For interstate general freight, FMCSA sets a minimum public liability of $750,000, rising to $1,000,000 for oil transported by tank and $5,000,000 for certain hazardous materials. In practice most shippers and brokers require $1,000,000 regardless of what the regulation permits.

Your insurer files evidence of that cover directly with FMCSA, and authority is not active until it lands. Intrastate carriers register through the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles instead, with their own requirements. Tell us which you are operating under before we start.

The MCS-90 is not cover for you

The MCS-90 endorsement is widely misunderstood. It is a financial guarantee to the public: it ensures an injured party is compensated even where the policy would not otherwise have responded. It does not extend your own cover.

If the insurer pays under an MCS-90 for something your policy excluded, it is entitled to seek reimbursement from you. Treating it as a safety net for uninsured operations is a serious and expensive misreading.

Cargo, bobtail and the gaps in between

Motor truck cargo covers the freight you are carrying, and its exclusions matter — refrigeration breakdown, unattended vehicles and certain commodity types are commonly carved out. Read the commodity list against what you actually haul.

Non-trucking liability, often called bobtail, covers the tractor when it is driven outside dispatch. It is not a substitute for primary liability and it does not respond while you are under load, which is exactly the confusion that leaves owner-operators exposed.