Two liability verdicts repriced your broker's insurance, shippers have until September 30 to get into the $85B rail merger review — and the federal driver-training registry just purged 110 schools onto a public list

1. Two liability verdicts repriced your broker’s insurance — treat coverage adequacy as a continuity risk, not a paperwork item

The legal shield freight brokers relied on has been removed, and the insurance market repriced the consequences fast. The Supreme Court’s unanimous Montgomery decision on May 14 eliminated the federal preemption defense brokers had used to escape negligent-carrier-selection claims, and in late July a Dallas County jury returned a $604 million verdict in a fatal-crash case — apportioning 23% of the fault to the broker, C.H. Robinson, which says it will appeal. Underwriters responded by raising prices and pulling capacity at the same time — a combination that turns your broker’s insurance program into a question about whether they can keep operating, not just whether they are covered.

• What the repricing actually looks like. Excess and surplus liability coverage is seeing 50% to triple-digit increases. Primary freight broker auto liability (FBAL) is up in the middle double digits. Brokers seeking excess capacity are facing 50–60% increases at minimum, with triple-digit hikes at the top end. For a small broker in the $30–40 million revenue range, annual premiums are moving from roughly $10,000 to $30,000–$40,000 — a cost step-change that a thin-margin brokerage absorbs out of working capital or passes straight through to you.
• Capacity is leaving, which is the part that bites. FreightWaves quotes Thom Albrecht: “We’ve seen two underwriters exit the market, basically backing the paper over in London,” and reports underwriters are “pulling back on capacity, not just raising prices.” Price increases are survivable; a broker who simply cannot place an excess layer at renewal is a different problem — that is a partner who may be unable to meet the insurance requirements written into your own transportation agreement.
• Why this reaches the shipper. The reason Montgomery matters upstream is the same logic that made it matter to brokers: if a broker can be held liable for negligent carrier selection, the argument that the shipper who selected that broker faces comparable scrutiny is the next one plaintiffs make. That argument is untested in most jurisdictions, but the insurance market has already priced the direction of travel — and insurance pricing is generally a faster read on liability risk than case law is.

So what: the procurement move is to convert this from an annual certificate-collection exercise into an actual diligence step before the next 3PL renewal. Specifically: (1) request current certificates and confirmation that excess layers were actually placed at renewal — not just that primary coverage exists; (2) ask each broker directly whether their carrier-selection process is consistent, auditable, and defensible, since that documented process is what both underwriters and plaintiffs will examine; and (3) re-read the indemnity and insurance-requirement clauses in your transportation agreements against what your brokers can now realistically obtain, because a requirement your partner cannot meet is a contract you cannot enforce. Confirm the specific holdings and current posture of the Montgomery decision and the C.H. Robinson judgment with your own counsel before relying on them in a negotiation or a contract change — this is an active and fast-moving liability area, and the appellate posture of individual verdicts can change.

2. The $85B rail merger review is live — and November 18 is the window where shipper leverage is procedural, not rhetorical

The Surface Transportation Board adopted a procedural schedule for the $85 billion Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger on August 18, removing the proceeding from abeyance and starting the clocks. This is the first rail merger judged under the tougher 2001 review rules, opposition is already organized — BNSF, CSX, and shipper groups filed motions for summary denial on August 6, with BNSF arguing the merger “does not meet the STB’s standard of enhancing competition and serving the public interest” — and the board’s decision is not expected before the second half of 2027, with final briefs due May 28, 2027. If any material share of your freight moves on UP or NS lanes, the outcome will define your rail options into the 2030s.

• The dates that matter, in order — and the first one is still open. Notices of intent to participate as a Party of Record are now due September 30, 2026: on August 31 the STB extended the original September 4 date at the request of the National League of Cities. Comments, protests, requests for conditions, and opposition evidence are due November 18, 2026. Preliminary comments from DOJ and USDOT follow on December 3. Whether to participate directly, through a trade association, or through a shipper coalition is a question for rail counsel this month, not in November — a coalition filing is generally the path that does not depend on your own standing.
• November 18 is the substance deadline, and substance means conditions. The filing that matters for a shipper is not “we oppose” — it is a request for conditions: specific, measurable protections (gateway preservation, service baselines, rate protections on affected lanes) that the board can attach to any approval. General statements of concern carry no procedural weight; a documented service baseline and a named at-risk gateway do.
• What to prepare before you file anything. Map which facilities and lanes touch UP or NS today; document current service performance so you have a baseline to defend; and audit your genuine routing alternatives, because “we have options” and “we have leverage” are different claims and the board will know the difference. Trade associations and shipper coalitions are coordinating filings — joining one is the low-cost path for a mid-market shipper that will not brief this alone.

So what: regulatory proceedings are the rare procurement venue where a mid-market shipper’s leverage is defined by a filing deadline instead of volume. The move is to (1) decide with rail counsel before September 30 whether to file a notice of intent to participate directly or to join a coalition filing; (2) decide by mid-October whether you are filing conditions on November 18 — alone or through a coalition — because a credible filing needs the lane map, the service baseline, and the requested conditions drafted before the deadline week; and (3) even if you file nothing, run the lane-exposure map anyway — it is the same analysis you will need for contract strategy if the merger is approved. Confirm the current procedural schedule and filing requirements against the STB’s docket directly and with your own counsel — schedules in a contested proceeding can move.

3. Three federal moves changed who does the paperwork on your carrier base — and one of them puts your detention practices on the record

Nothing here is a final rule. That is precisely why it is worth 10 minutes now: each of these lands in 2027, and each one moves a cost or a proof burden across the table between you, your broker, and your carriers.

• Broker transparency is at the White House, not on the books. FMCSA sent its broker transparency rule to OIRA on August 27, docket FMCSA-2023-0257 (RIN 2126-AC63), amending 49 CFR Part 371. As proposed, brokers must keep transaction records electronically and hand a carrier or shipper a copy within 48 hours of request — charges, payments, freight description, amounts, dates, claims. About 7,000 comments are in. OIRA review runs up to 90 days with one 30-day extension, and a supplemental proposal has to reopen comment before anything final. OOIDA and SBTC are pushing it; brokerage interests are not. Treat 2027 as the earliest real compliance horizon.
• The 14-hour clock pilot watches shippers, not just drivers. FMCSA is piloting a split duty period — a driver may pause the 14-hour window for up to 3 hours a day while off-duty, in the sleeper, or on-duty at a pickup or delivery. Pre-test ran May 18 to July 17 with 9 drivers at 3 carriers; the full pilot, roughly 256 drivers on 4-month terms, is planned for 2027. The sentence procurement should read twice: FMCSA said it will monitor shippers during the pilot to ensure the added flexibility does not result in increased detention. Safety advocates argue the pause can stretch a workday toward 17 hours. Either way, dwell at your docks becomes federally observed data rather than a private argument with your carrier.
• The federal registry just purged itself — and the removed list is public. On August 31 the Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security, and DOJ launched a joint crackdown on CDL fraud, and FMCSA executed the emergency removal of more than 110 Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT) providers from the Training Provider Registry. The method matters as much as the number: FMCSA pulled roadside-inspection records for drivers cited for failing English Language Proficiency requirements and cross-referenced those drivers against the TPR to find schools that repeatedly certified drivers who did not meet federal standards. A further 160-plus providers are proposed for removal following a July review of roughly 400 — cited for unlicensed instructors, inadequate training space, and fraudulent classroom setups — and FMCSA links drivers certified by that proposed-removal group to 239 commercial-motor-vehicle-related fatalities. The same day, Homeland Security Investigations ran a synchronized surge at more than 200 driving schools across 23 field offices. Meanwhile the federal shortcut to a single driver-record view stays frozen: on August 21 the Eastern District of Virginia (Judge Trenga) granted a TRO blocking DOT/FMCSA from pulling CDLIS records on roughly 17 million drivers, in suits brought August 13 by a coalition of states led by Virginia, California, and the District of Columbia — a preliminary-injunction hearing was set for September 10, so check the docket for the ruling before relying on the freeze. States are policing the pipeline one statute at a time: Pennsylvania’s Act 50 (SB 1294, signed July 20) raised the penalty for operating an unlicensed CDL school from $2,500 to $25,000.

So what: three moves, all cheap now and expensive later. First, get your detention data clean before the 2027 pilot, not during it — pull dwell by facility and by carrier for the last four quarters and find out whether your own docks are the reason your rates carry a detention premium; if FMCSA is going to look at shipper behavior, you want the number before your carrier quotes it back at you. Second, do not renegotiate broker agreements on the assumption that 48-hour record production is law — it is a proposed rule at OIRA with a comment cycle still to run. The useful move is to ask your brokers now, contractually, for the same visibility the rule would compel; the ones who agree before they are forced to are telling you something about their margin structure, and the ones who refuse are telling you more. Third, driver-training provenance just became checkable, so “we check CDLs” stops being an acceptable answer. FMCSA publishes the removed and proposed-removal provider lists at tpr.fmcsa.dot.gov — provider name, city, state, date of removal, and type of removal — which means the school a driver trained at is now a verifiable fact rather than a carrier’s assertion. The move is to (1) add one question to carrier qualification and to your next 3PL review: which ELDT providers certified the drivers running our freight, and have any of them been removed from or proposed for removal from the Training Provider Registry?; (2) treat a carrier who cannot answer that as having a documentation gap, not a paperwork inconvenience — the same negligent-selection logic that repriced broker insurance in Item 1 runs through driver qualification; and (3) recognize the capacity consequence in your rate expectations: removing 110 schools with 160 more proposed, while the CDLIS consolidation stays frozen, tightens the certified-driver pipeline into 2027, and a tightening driver supply is a rate-side pressure that will show up in your transportation line before it shows up in a headline. Confirm the current docket status, the pilot’s terms, the CDLIS litigation posture, and the current registry status of any specific provider — directly at tpr.fmcsa.dot.gov and with your own counsel — before writing any of this into a contract or a carrier scorecard; all of it is moving, and two pieces are in active litigation or review.