How New Carriers Can Build Experience and Win Freight in a Post-Montgomery World

The Supreme Court's ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II changed how brokers think about carrier vetting. If you are a new carrier without a safety rating in the FMCSA, here is what you can do to prove you are safe, build your track record, and keep your business moving.

The Challenge Facing New Carriers Right Now

Before Montgomery, brokers could often dispatch new carriers with minimal documentation and rely on federal preemption to shield them from negligent hiring claims if something went wrong. That protection is gone. Brokers are now legally exposed to state-law negligence suits if they cannot show they exercised reasonable care in selecting a carrier, and that exposure applies to every dispatch, including loads given to carriers with fresh operating authority.

The result is that some brokers are pulling back from new carriers entirely, not because new carriers are inherently unsafe, but because the broker's vetting process was never built to handle the absence of a safety rating. If you are a new carrier, the market has not closed to you. The way you present yourself to brokers needs to change.

The carriers who will win freight in this environment are the ones who make it easy for brokers to document a reasonable vetting decision. That means giving brokers more to work with, not less.

Understand What a Broker Needs to Document

A broker vetting a new carrier needs to be able to show, in writing, that they evaluated the carrier's profile and made an affirmative decision to dispatch based on available evidence. The more evidence you provide, the easier that documentation becomes, and the more likely a broker is to choose you over a carrier who provides nothing beyond an active FMCSA number.

The documents and records that matter most to a broker's vetting decision fall into three categories.

Build Your Inspection Record Intentionally

The FMCSA does not assign a formal safety rating until a carrier has been operating long enough to accumulate inspection data. That process takes time, and you cannot accelerate it. What you can do is operate in a way that builds a clean inspection record as quickly as possible.

Every roadside inspection that ends without a violation is a data point in your favor. Every inspection that results in a violation, especially a driver or vehicle out-of-service violation, is a data point that will follow you. In the early months of your operating authority, the quality of your inspection record matters more than the quantity.

Practical steps include conducting thorough pre-trip and post-trip inspections and documenting them, keeping your vehicle in compliance with FMCSA equipment standards at all times, maintaining hours-of-service logs accurately, and addressing any defects or violations immediately rather than deferring them. A carrier who has been operating for four months with six clean inspections is in a meaningfully stronger position than a carrier with six months of authority and no inspections at all.

"The carriers who will win freight in this environment are the ones who make it easy for brokers to document a reasonable vetting decision."

Start with Lower-Risk Freight and Build Up

Not all freight carries the same risk profile, and brokers know this. A new carrier who approaches a broker asking to haul hazardous materials, high-value electronics, or temperature-controlled pharmaceuticals is asking that broker to take on significant liability exposure with very little documentation to support the decision. Most brokers will decline, not because of you personally, but because they cannot build a defensible vetting record with the information available.

The path forward is to start with freight categories where the risk profile is lower and the documentation threshold is easier to meet. Dry van loads of non-perishable goods in regional lanes, flatbed loads of construction materials, and similar commodity types give you the opportunity to build a track record with brokers who are more willing to work with new carriers on lower-stakes freight.

As your inspection record grows, your insurance history lengthens, and your broker relationships develop, you will be in a stronger position to pursue higher-value and higher-risk freight categories. That progression is not a limitation. It is how a sustainable carrier business is built.

Make Your Documents Easy to Access and Share

One of the most practical things a new carrier can do is make their compliance documents easy for brokers to find, verify, and save. A broker who has to chase you for a certificate of insurance, or who receives a blurry photo of a document taken on a phone, is going to have a harder time building a vetting record. A broker who can access all of your current documents at once is going to find it much easier to document the decision to work with you.

This is exactly what a carrier compliance profile is designed to do. By uploading your MC authority, certificate of insurance, W-9, and other relevant documents to a single verified profile, you give every broker you work with a clean, current, accessible record of your credentials. When your insurance renews, you update it once and every broker who has your link sees the latest version automatically.

In a post-Montgomery environment, the carriers who make compliance documentation frictionless are the ones brokers will return to. The carriers who make it difficult are the ones brokers will route around.

Build Broker Relationships, Not Just Loads

A broker who has dispatched you three times without incident has a track record to point to. That track record is part of the vetting record for the fourth load. Every successful load you complete with a broker makes it easier for that broker to justify working with you again, and to document why.

Focus on building relationships with a smaller number of brokers rather than chasing one-off loads across dozens of platforms. Communicate clearly, deliver on time, keep your documents current, and respond quickly when a broker needs something from you. Those behaviors build the kind of operational track record that supplements your FMCSA record while it is still developing.

Ask brokers you have worked with successfully if they are willing to serve as a reference for other brokers who ask. A direct reference from a broker who has dispatched you and had a good experience carries real weight in a vetting conversation, especially when your FMCSA record is still thin.

A Roadmap for New Carriers in the Post-Montgomery Market

The following table summarizes the key actions new carriers can take to build a credible compliance record and win freight in a market where brokers are under greater scrutiny.

The post-Montgomery market is not closed to new carriers. It is a market that rewards carriers who take compliance seriously from day one. The carriers who build clean records, keep their documents current, and make it easy for brokers to work with them will find that the doors that seem closed right now will open as their track record develops.