Reviewed by Cameron Pechia, Founder, WA Insurance License 71186
Last reviewed: 8/3/2026
Key takeaway: Cargo theft insurance coverage is the protection built into a motor truck cargo policy that pays when freight is stolen, hijacked, or fraudulently diverted while it's on your truck or in your custody. It applies to owner-operators and fleets hauling for hire, and it typically covers direct theft, pilferage, and hijacking. What it often doesn't cover cleanly is a load moved through an unauthorized broker or a misidentified carrier. In 2025, cargo theft losses hit roughly $725 million nationally, a 60% jump from 2024, even though the number of incidents barely moved. The gap between what trucking companies assume their policy covers and what it actually pays out shows up most in fraud losses, not straight theft.
Your dispatcher pulls a load off a board. The rate looks decent. The broker checks out on a quick search. Your truck picks up, drops at the address on the rate confirmation, and three weeks later you find out the actual shipper never got their freight. Somewhere in that chain, the load got rerouted, and now everyone involved is pointing at everyone else.
That's not a hypothetical. It's the fastest-growing version of cargo theft in trucking right now, and it's exactly the kind of loss that catches trucking companies off guard, because they assumed their cargo policy had it handled.
It might. It might not. Depends entirely on how the load got booked.
Table of Contents
What Does Cargo Theft Insurance Coverage Actually Pay For?
Cargo theft insurance coverage is the part of a motor truck cargo policy that pays for freight stolen, hijacked, or pilfered while it's on your trailer, at a drop yard, or staged for pickup and delivery. It's built into most standard motor truck cargo policies, not sold as a separate add-on. If someone cuts a seal and cleans out a trailer overnight at a truck stop, that's a straightforward covered loss under most policies.
The complications start with how the theft happened. Straight theft, someone breaking into a locked trailer or driving off with an unattended load, gets paid without much argument. Theft by deception is different. If a load moved through a broker who never had authority to book it, or a "carrier" who wasn't the one your shipper actually contracted with, the claim can get flagged and delayed before it's even fully investigated. The freight is gone either way. Whether you get paid depends on the paper trail behind the load.
Why Did Cargo Theft Losses Jump 60% in 2025?
Cargo theft losses jumped 60% in 2025 because organized theft rings shifted from opportunistic, low-value grabs to fewer, far more targeted hits on high-value freight. Verisk CargoNet's year-end analysis put estimated national cargo theft losses at nearly $725 million, a 60% increase over 2024, while the total number of theft events stayed almost flat year over year. Estimated losses surged 60% to nearly $725 million, while confirmed cargo theft incidents increased 18%, and the average theft value rose 36% to $273,990, driven by more selective, high-value targeting by organized groups.
That means thieves hit fewer trucks in 2025 but walked away with a lot more each time. Food and beverage theft spiked 47%, with meat and seafood concentrated in the Northeast and tree nuts more common on the West Coast, while metal theft surged 77%, driven largely by copper demand. Enterprise computer hardware and cryptocurrency mining equipment also became prime targets, often shipped as standard freight with no indication of what was actually inside the trailer.
For a fleet owner, this isn't an abstract industry trend. If you're hauling anything with resale value, electronics, copper, food-grade freight, your risk profile changed in 2025 whether your renewal reflected it yet or not.
Can a Fraudulent Broker Void Your Cargo Insurance Coverage?
A fraudulent or unauthorized broker can create a real coverage gap on a cargo claim, because most cargo policies are underwritten around a specific, disclosed carrier relationship, not just "freight moving on a truck." When a load gets rerouted through someone who wasn't part of that original arrangement, the insurance carrier has grounds to dig in before paying, and sometimes to deny the claim outright.
This is where a lot of trucking companies get burned without realizing they were exposed. If a trucking company picked up or hauled a fraudulently brokered load, FMCSA guidance recommends identifying who actually paid for the freight and getting in contact with that party's brokerage, since the real broker is often a victim of the same fraud and not knowingly involved. That's a legal and operational mess to untangle after the fact. It's far cheaper to catch it before the truck ever leaves the yard.
What Is Double Brokering, and Why Does It Create a Coverage Gap?
Double brokering happens when a motor carrier accepts a load from a broker, then quietly re-brokers it to a different carrier without the shipper's or original broker's knowledge. FMCSA describes this as a situation where the motor carrier who actually delivers the load never receives payment, because the original broker pays the carrier it contracted with under the belief the transaction is complete, while that carrier never pays the one who did the work.
For insurance purposes, the coverage gap comes from the same root problem: your policy doesn't know about the second carrier, because nobody disclosed it. If freight goes missing somewhere in that chain, proving who was actually responsible for the load at the time of loss gets complicated fast, and complicated claims take longer to pay, if they pay at all.
How Do You Verify a Broker Before You Haul Their Load?
You verify a broker before hauling their load by checking their authority and phone number against FMCSA's SAFER system, not against whatever number is listed on the load board post. FMCSA specifically recommends confirming phone numbers of brokers and carriers using SAFER, and if the number provided doesn't match what's posted, calling the number in SAFER directly to discuss the load, since an employee's identity may also have been stolen.
A few checks worth building into your dispatch routine every time:
- Pull the broker's authority and phone number on safer.fmcsa.dot.gov before confirming the load
- Call the number listed in SAFER, not the number in the text or email you received
- Treat a "blind load," where the destination is withheld, as a reason to slow down and ask more questions
- Be suspicious of a broker who agrees too fast to pay more than market rate
- Keep every rate confirmation, email, and screenshot tied to the load in one place
FMCSA advises stopping the transaction entirely if a broker asks a carrier to present itself under a different name, if the load is described as blind and the destination is withheld, if the broker agrees too readily to pay above market rate, or if the rate itself is well above what's typical for that lane. None of these checks take more than a few minutes. A stolen load takes a lot longer to unwind.
What Should You Do the Moment You Suspect Cargo Theft or Fraud?
The moment you suspect cargo theft or fraud, stop the load if it hasn't delivered yet, and start documenting instead of guessing. Here's the order that actually helps:
- Contact your insurance company immediately so the claim clock starts running in your favor, not against you.
- File a report with FMCSA's National Consumer Complaint Database (NCCDB) at nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov.
- Notify the load board or platform the freight was posted on so they can investigate the account.
- For larger fraud schemes, file with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and consider your state attorney general's office.
- If a double broker was involved, file a claim against their surety bond directly, and move quickly since that bond amount is shared across every claimant.
- Notify your factoring company and any other carriers you regularly work with so your business name can't be used again.
One thing to never do: hold a legitimate shipper's freight hostage while you sort out who owes who. It feels justified in the moment. It's illegal, and it turns a fraud victim into a liability problem.
Does Highway Certification Lower Your Fraud Exposure?
Being a Highway Certified Insurance Agency lowers a client's fraud exposure by keeping their insurance and compliance data verified, current, and visible to brokers before a load ever gets booked. Pullsure is one of roughly ten agencies nationally to hold this certification, and it matters more now than it did two years ago.
On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC that freight brokers can be sued in state court for negligently hiring unsafe motor carriers. That decision removed a legal shield brokers had relied on for years, and it's pushed brokers to lean harder on verification platforms. Highway supports more than 80% of brokered loads in the U.S., which means a trucking company that shows up clean, current, and verified in that system keeps getting looks from brokers who are actively trying to avoid the next liability headache. A fleet that's Highway Certified through Pullsure has its certificates of insurance tracked and its coverage data confirmed automatically, without the "still waiting on your agent" delay that gives fraud more room to operate. Read more about how Pullsure built that process on our story page.
How Much Cargo Theft Coverage Do You Actually Need?
You need cargo theft coverage that matches the actual value of what you haul, not the minimum your last broker's contract required. Most broker-shipper contracts set a minimum cargo limit, but that number rarely tracks the real value of every load. If a $200,000 shipment gets stolen and your policy caps out at $100,000, the difference is coming out of your business, not your insurance carrier's.
This is the same math that applies to your commercial trucking insurance limits: legal minimum and practical minimum are two different numbers. For cargo, the right limit depends on your typical freight value, whether you run high-theft commodities like electronics or copper, and what your contracts actually require versus what protects you. A policy sized for dry van boxed goods won't hold up if you occasionally haul something worth five times as much. Review what you're actually carrying at least once a year, not just at renewal, because your freight mix probably isn't static and your coverage shouldn't be either.
If you've been running the same cargo limit for three years while your average load value climbed, you're not covered. You're hoping.
Cargo theft isn't going anywhere in 2026, and the fraud side of it is only getting more sophisticated. If your cargo policy hasn't been reviewed since your freight mix changed, or if you've never actually stress-tested what happens if a load gets rerouted through a broker who never should have touched it, now's the time. Get a coverage review with Pullsure and find out exactly what your policy pays for before you're finding out the hard way.
FAQ
What is cargo theft insurance coverage?
Cargo theft insurance coverage is the portion of a motor truck cargo policy that pays when freight is stolen, hijacked, or pilfered while it's on your truck, at a drop yard, or staged for pickup and delivery. It's typically built into a standard cargo policy rather than sold separately.
Does cargo insurance cover stolen freight moved through a fraudulent broker?
It depends on whether the carrier relationship was disclosed to your insurance carrier. If freight was rerouted through an unauthorized double broker, the claim can be delayed or denied because the policy wasn't underwritten around that undisclosed transaction.
What is double brokering, and is it illegal?
Double brokering is when a motor carrier accepts a load from a broker, then re-brokers it to a different carrier without the shipper's or original broker's knowledge. FMCSA treats it as a form of freight fraud, and it can lead to unpaid carriers and denied insurance claims.
How do I verify a broker is legitimate before hauling their load?
Check the broker's authority and phone number against FMCSA's SAFER system at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov, and call the number listed there instead of the number in the load posting. Treat blind loads, above-market rates, and requests to use a different company name as reasons to stop.
How much cargo theft insurance coverage do I need?
Enough to match the actual value of what you typically haul, not just the minimum your contracts require. If your average load value has grown since your last renewal, your cargo limit probably needs to grow with it.
What should I do immediately if I suspect cargo theft or fraud?
Contact your insurance company right away, file a report with FMCSA's National Consumer Complaint Database, notify the load board involved, and for larger schemes, file with the FBI's IC3. Never hold freight hostage while sorting out payment disputes.
Does cargo insurance cover theft at a truck stop?
Yes, in most cases. Direct theft of an unattended trailer at a truck stop, rest area, or drop yard is one of the most straightforward covered losses under a standard motor truck cargo policy, assuming the load itself was legitimately contracted.
Why did cargo theft losses rise so much in 2025 if incident numbers stayed flat?
Organized theft rings shifted toward fewer, more targeted hits on high-value freight instead of opportunistic low-value theft. The average value per stolen load rose 36% year over year, which is why total losses climbed even as incident counts held steady.
