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FAQS
Frequently Asked Questions About TransCore's CarrierWatch™
- Why should I use a service like CarrierWatch?
- I check my carriers once a year, isn't this enough?
- How can I minimize the risk of choosing a bad carrier?
- How is the CarrierWatch service better than using the FMCSA web site?
- We have a good validation process, why should we buy CarrierWatch?
- How can I integrate CarrierWatch into my brokerage software?
- We use a TMS package from a 3rd Party; can I still use CarrierWatch?
- How often is the database updated?
- Can I use CarrierWatch to find new sources of truck capacity?
- We prefer to handle insurance internally, Can CarrierWatch still help?
- Can I still use CarrierWatch if I have Contingent Cargo Insurance?
- Do you guarantee the accuracy of your service?
1. Why should I use a service like CarrierWatch?
Did you know that Brokers can be held responsible for negligent hiring? If you hire a carrier to move a load, and their driver has a catastrophic accident involving injury to a 3rd Party or environmental pollution, you could find yourself in court alongside the carrier. To safeguard your business, you need to have a robust carrier selection process that weeds out unsafe, unauthorized and under-insured carriers. And you need to follow that process EVERY TIME YOU HIRE A CARRIER. Anything less is inviting risk into your business. Using a product like CarrierWatch can help you minimize this risk by:
- Providing you with information on which to base your hiring decisions.
- Keeping you informed of any changes associated with your carriers.
- Automating the monitoring process and thereby ensuring that it is followed every time.
2. I check my carriers once a year, isn't this enough?
Just because you checked out a carrier in January, doesn't mean that they are still fit to use in March. On any given day there are about 40,000 carriers on the road with unsatisfactory or conditional safety ratings and another 10,000 carriers on 30-day notice for revocation for non payment of fines or insurance. We update our database of 150,000 motor truck carriers every day, and we frequently process more than 100 revocations per night.
Good carriers can go bad overnight, LITERALLY!
3. How can I minimize the risk of choosing a bad carrier?
By having a thorough validation process and using it for every load:
- Check the FMCSA web site to make sure the carrier is authorized as a Common or Contract carrier.
- Check the carrier's safety rating - don't use carriers with an unsatisfactory rating.
- If they have a conditional rating, find out why and what the carrier is doing to fix it.
- If the carrier doesn't have a safety rating, take a look at their SafetStat SEA Ratings. Ratings above 75 are a sign of problems.
- Get a signed copy of the carrier's insurance certificate (from their agent) naming you as a certificate holder and insist on at least 10 days notice of cancellation.
- If you have a certificate, check with the carrier's insurance agent to ensure that the policy is still in effect, or check the policy against the DOT filings.
- Finally, check to see if there is a cancellation or pending cancellation on the policy.
Or you can use a service such as CarrierWatch to do this work for you and free up your employees for more productive revenue-generating activities.
4. How is the CarrierWatch service better than using the FMCSA web site?
If you rely on the FMCSA web site, one thing you won't get is any warning that a carrier is in trouble. Carriers may look fine one day and have their authority revoked on the next. The FMCSA website shows current BIPD and BMC-34 insurance coverage, but it does not show the real limits of their insurance and it does not tell you when their coverage expires. If you depend on this information alone, you could be dispatching a carrier whose insurance expires while your freight is on board. CarrierWatch, on the other hand, gives you enough time to react BEFORE you dispatch a carrier. CarrierWatch informs you if a carrier is put on 30 day notice of revocation, and it provides a more complete disclosure of the carrier's insurance coverage including limits, deductibles, expirations dates and more.
In addition to information found on the FMCSA web site, CarrierWatch also provides:
- Detailed profile information on each carrier, including references, fleet composition, services and lane coverage.
- The ability to search for carriers with a particular complement of equipment and services.
- Access to each carrier's insurance certificate enabling you to see whether or not they have the appropriate coverage.
- Continuous monitoring, so that you don't have to re-check them every time you use them.
- An audit capability that enables you to get a listing of what authority, safety and insurance status the carrier had on any date in the past 2 years.
5. We have a good validation process, why should we buy CarrierWatch?
Even the best employees can get overwhelmed and backlogged with paperwork when business gets really busy. CarrierWatch can help you by automating the carrier monitoring process and by taking much of laborious work out of your hands. This will free up your employees for more important and possibly revenue generating tasks. Our insurance monitoring is done by experts with years of experience in both transportation and the insurance industry. We also have a team of people dedicated to working with carriers and clients, and to maintaining the integrity of our database.
6. How can I integrate CarrierWatch into my brokerage software?
Over the years we have found that CarrierWatch has the greatest impact when integrated directly into the client's TMS software. Our clients use CarrierWatch data to prevent the accidental dispatch of a carrier that is unsafe, unauthorized or uninsured. We provide daily download files in either XML or ASCII format. We'll be happy to provide you with specifications and a guide on how to go about integrating this data into your systems. Many of our clients use a closed loop approach. Their software provides TransCore with a daily list of carriers to be monitored and the CarrierWatch system provides the appropriate data records in return. Additions and removals are handled automatically.
7. We use a TMS package from a 3rd Party; can I still use CarrierWatch?
Several 3rd Party software vendors have already integrated CarrierWatch into their software. If you use software from Keypoint, Aljex or Express Technologies, you should ask them about getting a compatible version. If you are using software from another company, you may want to ask them if they have any plans to integrate in the near future.
Even if integration is not a possibility in the near future, you can still use the CarrierWatch web tool to validate new carriers, access insurance information and search for new business partners.
8. How often is the database updated?
We update the database every day:
- Insurance information is updated whenever we receive a new certificate. Notifications regarding insurance changes are sent out immediately upon receipt.
- DOT Authority information is checked and updated daily.
- Safety information is updated every month as soon as the new figures are published by the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration).
9. Can I use CarrierWatch to find new sources of truck capacity?
Absolutely! CarrierWatch has a very powerful search engine that enables you to search for carriers by equipment type, location, services, preferred lanes, commodities, fleet size, and a whole bunch more. CarrierWatch subscribers have unlimited access to the database for individual spot checks, and for more general searching.
Take a look at our sample data.10. We prefer to handle insurance internally, Can CarrierWatch still help?
Yes. If you want to maintain control of your own insurance monitoring, you can subscribe to our basic service that provides authority and safety monitoring only. You can use this in conjunction with your own process to weed out unsafe and unauthorized carriers. You can also use the DOT insurance data we provide (BIPD and BMC-34) to double check your insurance information.
11. Can I still use CarrierWatch if I have Contingent Cargo Insurance?
Yes. We will be glad to work with you and your insurance provider to ensure that everything normally required for "due diligence" is covered. We believe that we have an industry-leading process that should be more than acceptable to insurance providers.
12. Do you guarantee the accuracy of your service?
Unfortunately, we cannot indemnify our CarrierWatch customers; there are two main reasons for this.
- To effectively indemnify all of our customers, we would have to purchase enough insurance to cover every load they move, and this would make the service unaffordable.
- We collect information from a wide variety of sources, including the DOT, individual motor carriers and their insurance companies. We cannot indemnify our customers against missing or misinformation caused by an insurance provider. Insurance data is limited to what is declared on the Accord certificate, which frequently omits the exclusions in the policy.
However, we can provide you with proof of your "due diligence". We keep an audit log of every transaction on our database so, in the event of a claim against a carrier, we can provide you with:
- A printed record of the carrier's insurance, safety and authority status at the time of the incident.
- Proof that you used CarrierWatch to check on the carrier prior to loading.
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