12.3 Motor Carrier / Trucking and MCS-90

Motor Carrier vs. Truckers Coverage Form

Businesses that transport goods or people for hire are insured on the Motor Carrier Coverage Form, ISO CA 00 20. It replaced the older Truckers Coverage Form (CA 00 12) as the standard market form. The Motor Carrier form broadened coverage to handle modern for-hire realities — most importantly, who is an insured when tractors and trailers from different companies are coupled together (interchange).

The form still uses covered-auto symbols, but adds trucking-specific symbols such as Symbol 61 (any auto), 62 (owned), 63 (specifically described), 67 (hired), and 68 (trailers in your possession). The mechanics mirror the BAP: liability is usually written on the broadest symbol while physical damage is scheduled.

For-Hire Operations and Who Is an Insured

A crucial issue in trucking is which party's policy responds when a hauler pulls a trailer it does not own. The Motor Carrier form addresses this through interchange rules:

• A motor carrier is anyone providing transportation by auto in the furtherance of a commercial enterprise.
• When the insured is the trailer owner and another carrier is using the trailer, the using carrier — not the owner — is generally responsible for liability while the trailer is attached to a power unit it owns.
• A written trailer interchange agreement governs which party insures physical damage on the swapped trailer.

Trailer Interchange Coverage

Trailer interchange insures the insured's legal liability for physical damage to trailers it does not own but has in its possession under a written interchange agreement. It mirrors the three physical-damage coverages — comprehensive, collision, specified causes of loss — but applies them to non-owned trailers.

Trap: trailer interchange is liability-based — the insured pays only to the extent it is legally responsible for the damage, not automatically for any damage to the trailer.

FMCSA Financial Responsibility Limits

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) sets minimum public-liability limits for interstate carriers:

These federal floors apply regardless of what the policy limit otherwise says, which is exactly where the MCS-90 comes in.

The MCS-90 Endorsement

The MCS-90 is a federally mandated endorsement attached to a motor carrier's policy to certify compliance with public-liability minimums. Its defining feature: the insurer guarantees payment to an injured member of the public up to the federal limit, even if the underlying policy would not have covered the loss (for example, an unscheduled auto, a hauler operating outside its filing, or an excluded use).

The key exam fact: the MCS-90 is not coverage between the insurer and the insured. It is a public-protection guarantee. After paying a third party under the MCS-90, the insurer may seek full reimbursement from the motor carrier for any amount it would not otherwise have owed under the policy.

How the MCS-90 Differs from Coverage

Because the carrier must repay the insurer, a motor carrier that relies on the MCS-90 rather than proper scheduled coverage gets no real protection — only the public does. This is the single most-tested fact about the endorsement.

Filings: Form F and the BMC-91

Motor carriers prove financial responsibility to regulators through filings the insurer makes on their behalf. The MCS-90 (and the BMC-91/91X) is filed with the FMCSA for interstate property and hazardous-materials carriers. Many states require an equivalent Form F (uniform motor carrier endorsement) for intrastate operations.

A filing obligates the insurer to notify the regulator before cancelling — typically 35 days' advance notice — so coverage cannot quietly lapse on a carrier the public relies upon. The cargo a carrier hauls drives the required limit, which is why an underwriter must confirm whether the applicant moves general freight, oil, or hazardous substances before binding.

Cargo and Bobtail / Non-Trucking Exposures

Two specialty exposures round out trucking risk:

• Motor truck cargo (an inland marine form) insures the carrier's legal liability for the freight it hauls — the gap left by the auto liability care-custody-control exclusion.
• Bobtail / non-trucking liability covers an owner-operator's tractor when it is being used without a trailer and not in the business of the motor carrier (for example, driving home after delivery). Under a lease to a motor carrier, the carrier's policy covers the unit while in its service; bobtail fills the off-duty gap.

Trap: non-trucking liability is the mirror image of the carrier's coverage — it applies precisely when the carrier's policy does not.