Liable even when it wasn't your fault. Paid only what the policy says.
On interstate freight, the Carmack Amendment makes a carrier liable for the actual loss — and negligence is deliberately left out of the analysis. You can do everything right and still owe. Your cargo policy, meanwhile, pays what its terms say: its limit, its commodity description, its theft conditions. The gap between those two numbers is yours. Here's how the statute works, how carriers lawfully limit it, and where the modern thefts fall. We shop it across 40+ markets.
The short answer
Motor truck cargo covers the freight you're hauling for someone else — which neither auto liability nor physical damage touches. What makes it unusual is the law underneath it: on interstate moves the Carmack Amendment imposes near-strict liability for the actual loss, regardless of fault, and preempts state-law claims. Three things then decide whether you're protected: the limit against your maximum load, the commodity description, and the theft conditions — including how a fictitious pickup gets classified.
Carmack doesn't ask whether you were careful.
Most commercial liability turns on fault. Cargo doesn't. The Carmack Amendment, at 49 U.S.C. § 14706 and on the books since 1906, makes a motor carrier liable to the shipper for the actual loss or injury to property it transports in interstate commerce — and the carrier's negligence, or absence of negligence, is purposefully absent from the analysis.
In practice it works close to strict liability. Once the shipper shows the goods were tendered in good condition and arrived damaged, short or not at all, the burden shifts to the carrier. The defenses available are the narrow traditional exceptions — an act of God, the public enemy, an act or default of the shipper, public authority, and the inherent vice or nature of the goods — and a carrier relying on one generally still has to show it was free from negligence as well.
Your liability is set by statute. Your policy pays its own terms. That difference is yours.
Read those two sentences together and the whole point of this page falls out. A federal statute decides what you owe. An insurance contract decides what gets paid — subject to its limit, its commodity description, its theft conditions, its deductible and its exclusions. Nothing makes those two numbers the same size, and the remainder lands on the carrier.
Here's what makes that worth noticing rather than just worrying about: it's the third time this exact shape appears in a trucking program, and once you see the pattern you know what to check.
In each case somebody else is made whole first, and the carrier carries what's left. That isn't a flaw in the system; it's what the system is for. But it does mean building a trucking program well is largely the work of making that remainder as small as it reasonably can be — which is a coverage conversation, a contract conversation, and sometimes a limitation-of-liability conversation.
General information, not legal advice. Carmack cases turn on their facts, and the statute, the bill of lading and any transportation contract all interact. Take the legal questions to transportation counsel and the coverage questions to us — (479) 286-1066.
You can limit Carmack liability — but only if you do all four things.
The statute lets a carrier limit its liability to a value established by written declaration of the shipper or by written agreement. Courts have been specific about what that actually takes.
The step operators skip is offering the shipper a real choice between rate levels — and it's the step that makes the limitation hold.
What a valid limitation requires.
Printing a limitation on your paperwork and never offering an alternative rate generally doesn't limit anything — and carriers usually discover that during a claim rather than during contracting. Whether limiting liability makes commercial sense at all depends on your freight, your rates and your customers; a shipper paying for full value protection expects to get it. This is a legal exercise rather than an insurance one, and it belongs with transportation counsel before it goes on your paperwork.
This is the line where Arkansas law mostly doesn't apply.
Elsewhere on this site we lead with Arkansas statutes. Here the honest answer runs the other way, and it's stronger than a simple absence: on interstate freight, federal law affirmatively preempts Arkansas law.
Courts have held that Carmack preempts state and common law claims against a carrier for loss, damage or delay to interstate freight — breach of contract, negligence, bailment, and state consumer or deceptive trade practices claims among them — and that it provides the shipper's exclusive remedy. Punitive damages generally fall away with the state theories that would have supported them. A shipper cannot route around the statute by pleading Arkansas causes of action.
The useful half is what that leaves behind. Carmack governs interstate transportation. A haul that begins and ends in Arkansas without leaving the state generally sits outside it, governed instead by state law principles including contract and bailment. Which means an Arkansas carrier running both kinds of freight is operating under two different liability regimes depending on the load — different standards, different defenses, different deadlines.
In Northwest Arkansas, an in-state load can still be interstate.
Here's the wrinkle that catches carriers in this corner of the state. A shipment that begins and ends in the same state can still be treated as interstate for Carmack purposes where the goods pass through another state along the way.
Look at a map of Northwest Arkansas. We sit close to both the Oklahoma and the Missouri lines, and plenty of sensible routings between two Arkansas points cross one of them. So a load a carrier files away mentally as "in-state work" can be sitting under a federal statute — with its nine-month claim clock and its preemption of every state-law theory the shipper might otherwise have reached for.
This is not a reason for alarm; it's a reason to know which regime a given load is under before something goes wrong on it, and to make sure the cargo policy responds the same way either way.
General information, not legal advice, and not a determination that any statute governs any shipment. We are not citing an Arkansas intrastate cargo-liability statute here, because we have not verified one against a primary state source — intrastate movements are described only as being governed by state law principles, and the specifics belong with transportation counsel. Whether a movement is interstate is a fact question. Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas apply their own state law to intrastate movements within their borders.
Cargo forms are where the conditions live.
Two policies at the same limit can behave very differently. On this line the wording matters more than the number on the certificate.
Freight in your care
Loss or damage to property you're transporting for others, while it's in your care, custody and control. Collision, overturn, fire, theft and similar perils, subject to the form.
Commodity description
Haul something outside the described commodities and the load can fall outside coverage entirely. Occasional off-profile freight is exactly what this catches — so describe what you actually accept.
Theft and unattended vehicles
Requirements about locking, where the vehicle may be parked, attendance within a distance, security devices — plus reduced limits for freight sitting loaded overnight or over a weekend.
Refrigeration breakdown
Reefer loss usually needs its own endorsement, and that endorsement often carries conditions about maintenance records and temperature monitoring. The conditions are what get tested at claim time.
Targeted commodities
Electronics, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, apparel, and food and beverage attract lower sublimits because they're easy to resell. Check whether your freight sits in one of those buckets.
Legal liability or all-risk
A cargo legal liability form responds to what you're legally liable for and can be limited accordingly; a broader form reaches further. Worth knowing which one you have before you compare prices.
Cargo isn't a federal filing. It's a contract requirement — which is stricter in practice.
Operators frequently assume the reverse. Federal financial responsibility rules focus on public liability — injury and damage you cause to others — and a filing is made for that coverage. For general freight, cargo coverage generally isn't filed the same way, with household goods carriers being a recognized exception under their own requirements.
What makes cargo effectively mandatory is the people who give you work. Brokers and shippers require a stated limit before tendering freight, ask to be listed on the certificate, and sometimes specify theft or commodity conditions. That's enforceable commercially rather than by penalty — and the consequence of falling short is a rejected certificate and no load, which arrives faster than any regulator would.
For ocean and air movements, and for importers and freight forwarders, the conversation moves to inland marine and marine cargo rather than motor truck cargo. Different forms, different conventions, different liability regimes.
Nobody broke in. The freight was handed over.
The padlock-cutting yard thief still exists, but the fastest-changing losses in freight are strategic thefts: someone impersonates a legitimate carrier or driver, presents convincing paperwork, and the load is released voluntarily at the dock. The related family includes carrier identity theft, account takeovers, double-brokering chains and entirely fraudulent motor carriers.
Because no lock is broken and no vehicle is forced, the coverage question gets awkward in two specific ways — and both are worth raising with your agent by name rather than hoping.
If that second one sounds familiar, it's the same argument that runs through social engineering coverage on a crime policy and sits next to cyber liability. The industry hasn't finished deciding where deception-driven losses belong, which is exactly why you want the question answered on your policy rather than in the abstract.
Three questions to ask directly: how does this policy classify a fictitious pickup, what limit applies to it, and how does the cyber exclusion interact with it? And on the operational side, the things that actually reduce this exposure are verification habits rather than insurance — confirming a driver and carrier against details you already hold, rather than against details supplied in the booking.
Six situations, and what actually decides them.
| What happened | Cargo policy | What decides it |
|---|---|---|
| Load damaged in an at-fault collision | Core exposure | Limit against the load value; deductible |
| Load damaged with no negligence by you | Still your liability | Carmack applies regardless of fault |
| Freight taken from a trailer left over a weekend | Depends on conditions | Unattended-vehicle and parking conditions |
| Reefer fails and produce spoils | Needs an endorsement | Reefer breakdown terms and maintenance records |
| A load outside your usual commodities | May fall outside entirely | The commodity description on the policy |
| Freight released to an impostor with good paperwork | Classification decides it | Fraud-versus-theft treatment and the cyber exclusion |
A general illustration only. Actual response depends on the policy language, conditions, endorsements, exclusions and the facts of the loss.
Which cargo issues should you review?
Select what applies. The tool characterizes exposure and flags topics worth raising with an agent — it does not calculate a limit, determine your liability or quote a price. Educational only.
What do you carry, and how does it sit?
Areas to review
Want an agent to read your commodity description and theft conditions?
Start Your QuoteThe certificate gets accepted. The claim is where the wording shows up.
The failures on this line are almost entirely about the gap between the paperwork and the operation. A limit sized against the trailer rather than against the most valuable load. A commodity description written at binding and never updated as the business changed. An off-profile load taken as a favor for a good customer. Theft conditions unmet because nobody read where the trailer was allowed to sit. A reefer endorsement present but its maintenance conditions unmet. A broker contract promising a limit the policy doesn't carry. A fictitious pickup answered by a fraud sublimit nobody knew existed. And a limitation of liability printed on a bill of lading that never held, because no shipper was ever offered a choice of rate levels.
What we do about it: size the limit against your genuine maximum load rather than a typical one; write the commodity description around what you actually accept, including the occasional exception; read the theft and unattended-vehicle conditions against where your trailers really sit on a Friday night; check the reefer conditions are operationally achievable before relying on the endorsement; read broker and shipper agreements against the policy so the certificate isn't a promise you can't keep; ask specifically how fictitious pickup is classified and how the cyber exclusion interacts with it; and tell you plainly when the answer is transportation counsel rather than more insurance — the limitation-of-liability question in particular. We don't adjust your claim and can't overrule an adjuster — but we build the policy to respond, across 40+ markets.
Rated on commodity, lanes and losses.
Cargo premium turns on the commodities hauled and their theft attractiveness, the limit and deductible chosen, your radius and lanes, whether you run under your own authority or leased on, the maximum value of a single load, whether freight is refrigerated and what monitoring exists, where trailers are stored between loads and what security is in place, whether tracking or telematics is used, the coverage form and any sublimits or endorsements added, and prior cargo losses. Two things move it more than operators expect. The commodity mix, because targeted freight is priced very differently from general freight regardless of how carefully you run. And dwell practice — where and how long loaded trailers sit — which underwriters care about more than most carriers anticipate. Worth saying plainly: the cheapest cargo quote is often the one with the narrowest commodity description, and that only becomes visible when a load falls outside it. This isn't a quote or a guarantee.
What sits around it.
Motor truck cargo insurance questions.
What does motor truck cargo insurance cover?
Motor truck cargo covers loss of or damage to the freight you are hauling for someone else while it is in your care, custody and control. It sits alongside two other coverages that answer different questions. Auto liability covers what you do to other people and their property. Physical damage covers your own truck and trailer. Cargo covers the load, and nothing else on the policy does. Typical covered causes include collision, overturn, fire, theft and similar perils, subject to the form.
Two structural points matter more than the peril list. Cargo forms are not standardized, so two policies at the same limit can behave very differently depending on the commodity description, sublimits, theft conditions and exclusions. And there is a meaningful difference between a policy written as carrier legal liability, which responds to what you are legally liable for and can be limited accordingly, and a broader all risk form. Compare the wording rather than the price, because the wording is what decides a claim.
What is the Carmack Amendment and how does it affect me?
The Carmack Amendment, at title 49 of the United States Code section 14706, is the federal statute that has governed motor carrier liability for interstate freight since 1906, and it is the single most important thing for a carrier to understand about cargo. It makes a carrier liable to the shipper for the actual loss or injury to property transported in interstate commerce.
Two features define it. It operates close to strict liability, meaning the carrier's negligence, or lack of negligence, is deliberately absent from the analysis. Once the shipper shows the goods were tendered in good condition and arrived damaged or short, the burden shifts to the carrier. And it preempts state and common law claims, so for an interstate shipment it is generally the shipper's sole and exclusive remedy. The defenses available are narrow. They are the traditional common law exceptions, being an act of God, the public enemy, an act or default of the shipper, public authority, and the inherent vice or nature of the goods, and a carrier relying on one generally also has to show it was free from negligence.
Am I liable for cargo damage even if it was not my fault?
On an interstate shipment, generally yes, and this is the fact that surprises carriers most. Because Carmack liability does not turn on negligence, a carrier can do everything correctly and still be liable for the actual loss. That leads to the point this page exists to make. Your liability is set by a federal statute. Your insurance pays only what your policy says it pays, subject to its limit, its commodity description, its theft conditions, its deductible and its exclusions. Those two things are not the same size, and the difference between them is yours.
It is worth noticing that this is the same shape as two other exposures in a trucking program. A surety bond protects the obligee and you indemnify the surety. The federal endorsement on your liability policy pays the public and the insurer can seek reimbursement from you. And Carmack makes you liable regardless of fault while your policy pays only its terms. In each case someone else is protected first and the carrier carries the remainder. Building the program well is mostly about making that remainder as small as it reasonably can be.
Can a carrier limit its liability for cargo?
Yes, and it is one of the most underused tools available to a small carrier. The statute allows a carrier to limit its liability to a value established by written declaration of the shipper or by written agreement. Courts have set out what a carrier actually has to do for that limitation to hold up. Maintain a tariff meeting the applicable requirements. Give the shipper a reasonable opportunity to choose between two or more levels of liability. Obtain the shipper's agreement to the choice made. And issue a bill of lading before the shipment moves that reflects the agreement.
The requirement operators skip is the second one. Simply printing a limitation on your bill of lading, without ever offering the shipper a genuine choice between rate levels, generally does not limit anything, and the carrier finds that out during a claim rather than during contracting. Whether limitation makes commercial sense depends on your freight, your rates and your customers, and getting it right is a legal exercise rather than an insurance one, so it belongs with transportation counsel.
How much cargo insurance do I need?
Enough to cover the most valuable load you would realistically carry, which is a different question from what feels proportionate to your equipment. The most common error on this line is setting a cargo limit that looks sensible next to the truck and trailer. Freight does not care what the rig is worth. A single machine, a run of specialized components or a high value consumer load can be worth several times the equipment carrying it, and the difference between the load value and the limit is money you are self insuring without having decided to.
Three inputs drive the number. The maximum value of any single load you would accept, including the occasional exceptional one. What your brokers and shippers require contractually, which is frequently higher than you would otherwise choose. And whether you would ever have more than one load exposed at the same time, for example a multi stop run or freight held over at a terminal. Work from your actual maximum rather than from an average, and tell your agent about the exceptional loads rather than the typical ones.
Does cargo insurance cover theft?
Commonly yes, and commonly with conditions that decide the claim. Theft is one of the most frequently disputed categories on cargo policies, not because carriers are unwilling to cover it but because the conditions attached to it are easy to fall outside of during ordinary operations.
Watch for several things in particular. Conditions about unattended vehicles, which can require the vehicle to be locked, parked in a specified kind of location, or attended within a stated distance. Sublimits that apply to theft generally or to particular commodity categories such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, apparel and food and beverage, which are targeted because they are easy to resell. Requirements about security devices, tracking or alarms. And exclusions or reduced limits for freight left loaded overnight or over a weekend. The practical approach is to describe how you actually operate, including where the trailer sits between a Friday delivery and a Monday pickup, and to have the policy written against that rather than against an idealized version of your week.
What is a fictitious pickup, and is it covered?
A fictitious pickup is a theft carried out by deception rather than by force, and it is one of the fastest changing exposures in freight. Someone impersonates a legitimate carrier or driver, presents convincing paperwork, and the freight is handed over voluntarily at the dock. Related schemes include carrier identity theft, account takeovers, double brokering and entirely fraudulent motor carriers. Nobody breaks a lock, which is precisely the problem for coverage.
Two consequences follow and both should be raised with your agent specifically. Some policies treat a fictitious pickup as a fraud loss rather than a theft loss, and apply a different and usually smaller limit to it. And cargo forms commonly carry cyber exclusions which, where the deception began with a spoofed email, a compromised inbox or a hijacked message thread, may be read to limit or bar a claim, because a digital deception has produced a physical loss. Wording varies considerably between carriers. Ask directly how your policy classifies a fictitious pickup, what limit applies to it, and how any cyber exclusion interacts with it.
Does Arkansas law govern a cargo claim?
For an interstate shipment, generally not, and that is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly. Federal law does not merely leave a gap here. It affirmatively preempts state law. Courts have held that the Carmack Amendment preempts state and common law claims against a carrier for loss, damage or delay to interstate freight, including claims for breach of contract, negligence, bailment and state consumer or deceptive trade practices, and that it provides the shipper's exclusive remedy. Punitive damages generally fall away with the state theories that would have supported them.
A purely intrastate movement is a different matter. Carmack governs interstate transportation, so a haul that begins and ends in Arkansas without leaving the state generally sits outside it and is governed by state law principles including contract and bailment. That means an Arkansas carrier running both kinds of freight can be operating under two different liability regimes depending on the load. There is a wrinkle worth knowing in Northwest Arkansas particularly. A shipment that begins and ends in the same state can still be treated as interstate where the goods pass through another state, and this corner of Arkansas sits close to both the Oklahoma and Missouri lines. This is general information rather than legal advice and cargo claims turn on their facts.
Is cargo insurance required by law?
For most general freight operations it is not a federal filing requirement in the way that auto liability is, and operators frequently assume the opposite. Federal financial responsibility rules focus on public liability, meaning injury and damage you cause to others, and a filing is made with the agency for that coverage. Cargo coverage for general freight is generally not filed in the same way, with household goods carriers being a recognized exception subject to their own requirements.
What makes cargo effectively mandatory is contract rather than regulation. Brokers and shippers routinely require a stated cargo limit before they will tender freight, ask to be listed on the certificate, and sometimes specify conditions about theft coverage or particular commodities. That requirement is enforceable against you commercially rather than through a penalty, and the consequence of falling short is a rejected certificate and lost revenue rather than a fine. The practical answer is that it is required by the people who give you work, which in day to day terms is a firmer requirement than a regulation would be.
How do I get a cargo insurance quote?
Start the commercial quote form or call (479) 286-1066. Cargo is usually quoted alongside your auto liability and physical damage rather than on its own.
Useful to have: your operating authority status, meaning whether you run under your own authority or leased on to another carrier, because that determines whose contract the cargo requirement lands on. The commodities you haul and the rough percentage split between them, including anything unusual you take occasionally. The maximum value of a single load. Your radius and the lanes you run. Whether any freight is refrigerated, and if so what your maintenance and temperature monitoring practice is. Where trailers sit when they are not moving, including overnight and over weekends, and what security exists at those locations. Any tracking or telematics in use. Prior cargo losses. And the insurance requirements written into your broker and shipper agreements, since those frequently set the limit rather than your own judgment does. If you already carry cargo coverage, send the declarations page and the forms list rather than just the limit.
If our coverage explainers are useful, mark Cribb Insurance as a preferred source so more Arkansas carriers can find our local, plain-English guides.
Tell us the load you'd hate to lose.
Not the average one — the biggest one you'd accept on a good week. That number, plus what you actually haul including the occasional exception, where trailers sit overnight, and any broker agreement that specifies a cargo limit. If you're already covered, send the declarations and the forms list rather than just the limit: on this line the conditions decide the claim, and they're never on the certificate.
Cribb Insurance Group Inc. is an independent insurance agency licensed in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas. This page describes motor truck cargo insurance in general, industry-standard terms for informational purposes only. It is not a policy, not an offer of insurance, and not a guarantee of coverage, availability, eligibility, or price. It is not legal advice, transportation law advice or a legal opinion, and it is not a determination of your liability for any shipment or claim. Agency licensure is not the same as carrier appointment; product and market availability differ by state, by class of operation and over time.
Cargo policies are not standardized and vary substantially between carriers. The coverage form, whether written as carrier legal liability or on a broader basis, the commodity description, limits, sublimits, deductibles, theft and unattended-vehicle conditions, security and tracking requirements, refrigeration breakdown terms and their maintenance conditions, and all exclusions are set by the carrier and apply only as written in the policy actually issued to you. Coverage for targeted or high-value commodities, refrigerated freight, freight at rest or in storage, freight at locations other than described, loading and unloading, delay, debris removal, freight charges, employee dishonesty, fictitious pickup and other deception-based losses, and losses involving any cyber element is not automatic and must be confirmed in the applicable policy. Descriptions of how forms and endorsements commonly operate are general and are not a statement of what is on your policy.
About the law described on this page. References to the Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C. § 14706, to its claim-filing and suit provisions, to the common law exceptions to carrier liability, and to the requirements for limiting carrier liability, are general summaries provided for information only. They are not a determination that the statute applies to any shipment, that any defense is available, that any limitation of liability is enforceable, or that any deadline applies to any claim. Whether a movement is interstate or intrastate is a fact question, and a shipment beginning and ending in one state may be treated as interstate in some circumstances. No Arkansas intrastate cargo-liability statute is cited on this page, because none was verified against a primary Arkansas source; intrastate movements are described only as being governed by state law principles. The requirements for a valid limitation of liability are drawn from case law, applied differently on different facts, and establishing a limitation is a legal exercise that should be undertaken with qualified transportation counsel rather than on the basis of this page. Statutes are amended and courts interpret them. Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas apply their own law to intrastate movements within their borders. Broker and shipper insurance requirements described are ordinary commercial practice, not legal requirements, and vary by counterparty. No cargo theft statistics are published on this page.
The interactive exposure matcher is an educational illustration only. It does not evaluate your operation, freight, contracts, liability position or insurance needs, does not determine what law applies to any shipment, does not determine eligibility or coverage, and does not calculate, recommend or suggest a cargo limit or any coverage amount. No premium figures, rate ranges, eligibility thresholds or carrier underwriting criteria are published on this page. Any cost or coverage descriptions are general and illustrative, not a quote, and not a guarantee. Market availability referenced as "40+ carriers" reflects the agency's overall market access across personal and commercial lines.
Last reviewed July 2026.