Carrier vetting · Process
How Often Should Freight Brokers Recheck a Carrier?
Ask ten brokers how often a carrier should be re-vetted and you'll hear ten answers: at onboarding, annually, quarterly, "when insurance renews," or — honestly, at many brokerages — never, once the carrier packet is in the file. Courts haven't settled the question either. No ruling publishes a required refresh interval.
But broker negligent-selection cases — including matters now proceeding after the Supreme Court's Montgomery decision — repeatedly raise whether the broker relied on information that was reasonably current when the carrier was selected. That points to a defensible principle that is more useful than any fixed interval:
The five-stage cadence
| When | What a defensible process does |
|---|---|
| At onboarding | Establish the carrier's foundational identity and eligibility: legal name and MC/DOT identity, active authority, insurance, carrier agreement, safety rating, inspection and crash history, out-of-service performance, authority age, and any fraud or identity concerns. This creates the baseline — it does not establish that the carrier remains appropriate forever. |
| Ongoing | Watch the facts that change without your involvement: authority revocation or suspension, insurance cancellation or expiration, safety-rating changes, out-of-service orders, fraud or identity alerts, and your own internal experience — service incidents, claims, complaints, do-not-use decisions. |
| Before every load | Refresh the facts that matter to this decision: authority active now, coverage valid for the load's dates and cargo value, no material change in safety status, no new concerns or internal restrictions — and record why this carrier is appropriate for this shipment. |
| During the load | Respond when something material changes: the carrier or driver doesn't match who was vetted, equipment changes, the load appears re-brokered, or a safety concern arises in transit. |
| After commitment | Preserve the complete point-in-time record, unaltered. The examination, if it ever comes, is about what you knew and decided then. |
Why "before every load" is the stage that matters most
A carrier can be properly onboarded in January and be an unreasonable selection in July — authority revoked, coverage lapsed, a string of recent violations. The reverse is also true: a carrier with an isolated historical concern may be an entirely reasonable choice if the concern was reviewed, placed in context, and resolved on the record.
That's why the load-commitment moment carries the weight. It is the decision a negligent-selection claim examines: this carrier, for this load, based on what was known then. Vetting that lives only in an onboarding packet answers a question nobody is asking. For what that per-load check should cover, see what brokers should check before every load.
Is daily monitoring legally required?
No general ruling requires daily monitoring. It is worth knowing, though, that in earlier federal litigation involving C.H. Robinson, a court weighed favorably that the broker verified authority, insurance, and safety qualification and used a third-party service that updated carriers' federal compliance status daily. That doesn't create a universal daily-monitoring rule — but it is a data point about a process a court once viewed as reasonable, and a reminder that "we checked at onboarding" and "our information was current" are different claims.
The part most cadences miss: proving it
A cadence you follow but cannot demonstrate is, in litigation terms, close to a cadence you didn't follow. For each load-time decision, the record worth preserving includes the sources consulted and when, the information returned, the concerns found and how each was resolved, who decided, their stated reason, and a snapshot preserved unaltered from the moment of commitment. Retrieval timestamps do quiet, important work here — they are the difference between "our policy says we check" and "here is what we checked, at 14:29, before committing this load."
Sources
- Opinion of the Court (PDF), Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, No. 24-1238 (May 14, 2026) — supremecourt.gov
- On a broker's duty to check publicly available safety data: Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 976 F.3d 1016 (9th Cir. 2020). The favorable treatment of a broker's use of a third-party service updating carriers' federal compliance status daily appears in prior federal district-court litigation involving C.H. Robinson; consult counsel for the decisions applicable to your jurisdiction.
This article is a general discussion of process, not legal advice, and has not been reviewed by counsel. Cadence expectations vary by state law and circumstances.
CarrierBasis refreshes the facts at decision time, applies your policy, and seals a load-specific compliance record — so "reasonably current" is how your process works, not a claim you hope to reconstruct later.
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