What Carrier Vetting Should Look Like When Service Matters

Most shippers never see their broker’s carrier vetting process. They see the outcome: the load that delivered clean, or the 6 a.m. call about a truck that never showed. For years, vetting was a compliance chore. That is no longer a defensible position — for brokers, or for the shippers who hire them.

The bar moved in 2026

First, the economics of freight crime changed. Cargo theft losses across the U.S. and Canada reached roughly $725 million in 2025 — up about 60% year over year — with the average loss per incident near $274,000. The method changed too. Strategic theft, where criminals use deception rather than force to get freight handed over willingly, now accounts for roughly a third of incidents, according to Scott Cornell, transportation crime lead at Travelers. Identity theft and double brokering do more damage today than bolt cutters.

Second, the legal exposure changed. On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC that state-law negligent hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the FAAAA. Brokers lost the early-exit defense they had leaned on for years, and carrier selection now carries real tort exposure — with the documentation behind each decision mattering as much as the decision itself.

For shippers, that cuts two ways: your broker’s diligence protects your freight, and it shapes where liability lands when something goes wrong.

Why a compliant carrier is not automatically a good carrier

Active authority. Insurance certificate on file. CSA scores inside threshold. That is the floor, not the standard — because a clean record and no record look almost identical on a screen. Most motor carriers hold no FMCSA safety rating at all (TIA puts the unrated share near 94%), so the absence of red flags often just reflects the absence of data. And a criminal operating under a legitimate carrier’s stolen identity passes every one of those checks, because the identity being checked is real.

“Brokers and shippers have access to more safety data than ever before. The key is turning that data into a consistent, defensible carrier selection process.”

Alex Panfilov, Founder and CEO, Verified Carrier — speaking to Overdrive, May 2026

What strong carrier vetting actually looks like

A vetting process built for service, not just for the audit file, works in layers:

1.       Verify identity, not just authority. Confirm the entity on the rate confirmation is the entity operating the truck. Call back on the number in the FMCSA record, not the one in the email signature. Watch for dormant MC numbers that suddenly reactivate.

2.       Check operational fit against the lane. A carrier that has run Southwest dry van for three years and suddenly bids hard on a high-value reefer lane out of the Northeast is an anomaly worth a phone call.

3.       Push vetting down to the driver. Before the truck arrives, confirm the driver name, MC number, and what is painted on the door — without feeding the answers. Hesitation on a high-value load is information.

4.       Evaluate performance, not only safety. Safety scores tell you whether a carrier is dangerous. They do not tell you whether it hits the dock on time or flags a breakdown before the receiver does. Track on-time pickup, on-time delivery, and tender acceptance by carrier.

5.       Monitor continuously. Onboarding is a snapshot. Authority revocations, insurance lapses, and ownership changes happen mid-relationship. A carrier approved in January is not automatically one you tender to in September.

6.       Document every step. Patterns no single load reveals show up across a documented history — and documentation is what separates a defensible carrier decision from an indefensible one.

Vetting is a service decision, not just a security decision

This is the part that gets lost. The discipline that keeps freight from disappearing is the same discipline that keeps it moving on schedule. A carrier that cannot be reached during onboarding will not be reachable when a receiver closes early. Loose vetting rarely announces itself as fraud — it shows up as a missed appointment, a silent truck, and a shipper explaining why the material is not on the job site.

Questions worth asking your broker

•       How do you verify a carrier’s identity, not just its operating authority?

•       What share of our loads move on carriers you have used before?

•       How do you monitor a carrier between the first load and the hundredth?

•       Can you produce the vetting record for a specific load we moved six months ago?

A broker who answers those quickly has built a process. A broker who has to go look is telling you something too.

How TEN approaches it

At TEN, vetting is not a checkbox at onboarding — it is an ongoing part of how we protect our shippers’ operations. We verify identity before dispatch, qualify capacity against the specific lane and commodity, monitor carriers throughout the relationship, and document the decisions we make on your behalf. When something looks wrong, we would rather re-cover the load than hand your freight to a carrier we cannot stand behind. On complex freight — manufacturer pickups, material held in storage, staged delivery to a sequenced job site — there is no slack in the schedule to absorb a carrier that was never properly qualified.

If you want to pressure-test how your current carrier vetting standards hold up, let’s have that conversation. Contact TEN Logistics.

TEN Logistics — Promises Made. Promises Delivered.

Sources: Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238 (U.S. May 14, 2026); FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2025 cargo theft data; Travelers (Scott Cornell) via Automotive Fleet/Trucking Info, May 2026; Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA); Overdrive, May 2026.