Short answer
Federal rules require one thing of a property broker: a $75,000 surety bond or trust fund. FMCSA’s filing table lists $0 in liability insurance and $0 in cargo insurance for brokers. Shippers’ contracts ask for more. The four policies brokers commonly add are contingent cargo, contingent auto liability, general liability, and errors and omissions.
A freight broker can be fully legal with a $75,000 bond and no insurance policy at all. Whether that’s enough depends on your customers’ contracts, and on how much of your own money you want riding on a carrier’s worst day.
This post covers what the regulations require, what changed in January 2026, and what each common policy does and doesn’t pay for. It’s general information, not insurance or legal advice. Buy coverage through an agent who writes transportation accounts and has read your customer contracts.
What federal rules require: the $75,000 bond or trust
49 CFR 387.307 says it in one line: “A broker must have a surety bond or trust fund of $75,000 in effect.” A bond is filed on Form BMC-84 and a trust fund on Form BMC-85.
That money isn’t there for the broker. The rule describes it as providing “for payments to shippers or motor carriers if the broker fails to carry out its contracts, agreements, or arrangements.”
On insurance, FMCSA’s filing requirements table lists brokers at $0 for bodily injury and property damage coverage and $0 for cargo. The bond or trust is the whole federal requirement.
Surety companies price the bond on the owner’s credit. Advertised premiums run from about 1.25% of the bond amount a year (roughly $938) for strong credit to 12% or more for weak credit, according to rate pages from Lance Surety Bonds and Bryant Surety Bonds. Those are advertised rates, so get your own quotes. A BMC-85 trust means putting up the $75,000 itself. There’s more in our freight broker bond entry.
What changed on January 16, 2026
The $75,000 amount stayed the same. The rules around it got stricter when FMCSA’s broker financial responsibility rule took full effect on January 16, 2026, after a one-year extension.
- A BMC-85 trust can hold cash, irrevocable letters of credit from a federally insured depository institution, and Treasury bonds, and nothing else. The assets have to convert to cash within 7 calendar days.
- Loan and finance companies can no longer serve as BMC-85 trustees.
- When a payment or claim determination takes the bond or trust below $75,000, the surety or trustee has to tell FMCSA within 2 business days.
- FMCSA then suspends the broker’s authority within 7 business days of serving notice, unless the broker shows the notice was a mistake, restores the full $75,000, or settles the claims without touching the bond or trust.
- If a broker fails financially, the surety or trustee has to accept claims for 60 calendar days after FMCSA’s public notice.
One wording trap: some FMCSA summaries describe the suspension window as 7 calendar days. The regulation text says business days. Go by the regulation.
FMCSA’s own numbers put the risk in scale. In the final rule, the agency estimated that about 1.3 percent of brokers, roughly 429 in 2022, see a drawdown on their bond or trust in a given year, with claims averaging about $1,900 each.
The coverage brokers add on top
FMCSA requires none of these. Customer contracts drive them.
| Coverage | What it’s for | What it doesn’t do |
|---|---|---|
| Contingent cargo | Responds when the carrier’s cargo policy doesn’t pay a loss and the broker gets pulled into the claim. Covers defense and settlement costs | It isn’t primary cargo coverage. Policies are often written to follow the carrier’s policy, so the carrier’s exclusions can carry over |
| Contingent auto liability | Covers the broker’s liability from a truck crash on a contingent basis, with the carrier’s own policy as primary | Punitive damages are typically excluded |
| General liability | Injuries and property damage tied to your office and operations | Has nothing to do with the freight, the carriers or the cargo |
| Errors and omissions | Claims that a mistake by your staff, such as giving a carrier the wrong information, caused a loss | Doesn’t pay for bodily injury or property damage |
| Cyber | The cost of responding to a breach or an attack | Usually isn’t included in a standard business package policy |
| Workers’ compensation | Employee injuries and illness on the job | Rules vary by state. Ask your agent what applies to you |
Descriptions drawn from Roanoke Insurance Group, Reliance Partners, Avalon Risk Management, Surety Bonds Direct and a DAT guest article by an insurance agent. Policy wording varies, so read yours.
How much coverage is enough
There’s no standard number, and anyone who quotes one without reading your contracts is guessing. Published program limits give a sense of the range. One Lloyd’s-backed program sold through Amwins lists up to $500,000 for contingent cargo, up to $5,000,000 for broker auto and general liability, and up to $1,000,000 for errors and omissions.
Your largest customer’s contract sets the real floor. Read the insurance clause before you sign, and send it to your agent.
Why a broker gets pulled into a cargo claim at all
On paper, cargo loss is the carrier’s problem. The Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C. 14706, makes the carrier liable for “the actual loss or injury to the property,” and the word broker doesn’t appear in that section. The Eleventh Circuit put it flatly in a 2018 case, Essex Insurance v. Barrett Moving & Storage: the amendment “does not apply to brokers.”
Three things bring the claim to your door anyway.
- Your contract with the shipper may make you responsible no matter what Carmack says.
- The same court said a party that agreed to accept legal responsibility for the shipment isn’t treated as a broker, and that the answer depends on how it held itself out. Vague paperwork cuts against you.
- Shippers can bring state-law claims against a broker, such as negligence or breach of contract.
There’s also a gap on the carrier’s side. Most for-hire carriers haven’t had a federal cargo insurance requirement since March 21, 2011. Household goods carriers still do. The federal liability minimum for general freight is $750,000. So the cargo coverage on a truck is whatever the carrier chose to buy, with whatever exclusions came with it.
What to check on the carrier’s side
Your contingent policies sit behind the carrier’s own insurance, so start with the carrier’s certificate. Common broker requirements are $1 million in auto liability and $100,000 in cargo, according to Marquee Insurance Group. FMCSA’s January 2026 report to Congress cites a 2013 American Trucking Associations analysis of insurance-industry data, which found 83 percent of policies on trucks over 26,000 pounds were written at $1 million.
- Check the cargo limit against the value of the load you’re about to give them.
- Read the cargo exclusions against the commodity. A policy that excludes what you’re shipping is no coverage.
- Check the effective dates, and get the certificate from the carrier’s insurance agent or your onboarding service, not from an email attachment the carrier sent.
Our carrier onboarding guide and cargo insurance entry go deeper. In FreightVero, a load can’t move to Alerted until the carrier’s compliance status reads Approved. The software holds that line on every load. Insurance monitoring through an RMIS integration is on the roadmap. Until it ships, your team reads the certificates.
Final thoughts
The bond keeps your authority. Insurance keeps one bad load from closing the business. If you’re buying in order, contingent cargo and errors and omissions answer the claims that come out of the freight itself, contingent auto answers the worst-case crash, and general liability is usually packaged with the rest. Let your biggest customer’s contract set the limits, and read that clause again at every renewal. Our guide to starting a freight brokerage covers where insurance fits in the setup.