Cargo crime used to mean a broken lock and a missing pallet. Today the fastest-growing losses are strategic: fictitious pickups booked through load boards, carriers whose operating authority was hijacked, double-brokered loads that vanish between handoffs. The freight leaves your dock exactly the way it's supposed to — it just never arrives. And the coverage most distributors carry was built for the old kind of theft.
What the carrier actually owes you
Shippers routinely assume the trucker's insurance makes them whole. It rarely does. A carrier's liability is capped by the bill of lading and released-value rates, and payouts are commonly a fraction of invoice value — when the carrier's policy responds at all. If the "carrier" was a stolen identity, its policy may respond to nothing, because the thief was never the insured.
Where the gap gets funded
- Shipper's-interest cargo — first-party coverage on your freight, at your values, regardless of what the carrier owes or whether its insurer pays.
- Motor truck cargo — if you run your own fleet, this is the line that covers the freight on your trucks; check theft warranties and unattended-vehicle clauses, which quietly gut claims.
- Warehouse-to-warehouse wording — coverage that follows the goods through intermediate stops and cross-docks, where strategic theft actually happens.
- Single-conveyance limits — set against your real max load value, not last year's average.
Underwrite the handoffs, not just the miles
The exposure isn't the highway — it's every point where freight changes hands and paperwork substitutes for identity. A program built for how loads are actually booked and brokered today closes the distance between what a carrier legally owes and what the load was worth. That distance is where distributors quietly self-insure without deciding to.