Carrier Insurance and Deductibles: What Is Really Covered

The insurance on your car belongs to the carrier

Enterprise Auto Transport is a licensed broker. We arrange your shipment, vet the truck, and help you reach the right people if something goes wrong. The cargo insurance that actually pays for transit damage is held by the motor carrier who physically hauls your vehicle — never by the broker.

That distinction matters more than most people realize. Drivers and carriers are independent businesses, not our employees. We do not own their trucks, hire their drivers, or control their policies. What we can do — and do on every single dispatch — is verify that the carrier has active operating authority with the FMCSA and a current, in-force certificate of cargo insurance before your car is assigned.

You can request a copy of the assigned carrier's certificate of insurance from us before pickup. A refusal to provide one is a red flag, no matter who you are dealing with.

• Open carriers we dispatch carry cargo limits starting at $250,000
• Enclosed carriers we dispatch carry cargo limits up to $2,000,000
• We confirm authority, safety record and insurance certificates before assignment
• We cannot control the carrier's internal deductible, claims handling speed or repair-shop choice

We are like a travel agent for your vehicle

Think of Enterprise Auto Transport the way you would think of a travel agent. A travel agent finds the best flight, confirms the reservation and handles the paperwork — but the airline owns the plane, sets the fare and is responsible for the flight. We do the same thing for your vehicle move.

Our only responsibility is to negotiate the best realistic rate with licensed carriers on your behalf and present you with the best offer once those negotiations are complete. We cannot change any contract after it is signed, we cannot force a carrier to discount a fare it never agreed to, and legally only the carrier can offer discounts or modify the terms of the physical move.

The bill of lading must come from the carrier

The bill of lading is the legal contract and inspection record for the physical move. Because the carrier is the one hauling your vehicle, the controlling BOL is the carrier's document — signed by you and the driver at pickup, and again at delivery.

We provide a printable BOL on our website as a backup in case the driver arrives without one, but the carrier's own BOL is the document that governs the shipment. Make sure you leave pickup with a signed copy in hand or in your inbox before the truck leaves.

Almost every carrier policy has a deductible

A cargo policy limit is the maximum the insurer will pay. The deductible is the amount the carrier absorbs before the insurer pays anything at all. Deductibles in this industry commonly run anywhere from $500 to $5,000, and sometimes higher on enclosed equipment.

This is the part almost no auto transport website will tell you plainly: if the damage to your vehicle is less than the carrier's deductible, the insurance company pays nothing. In that situation the carrier is expected to pay the repair out of their own pocket — and reputable carriers do exactly that, because their authority, their Central Dispatch rating and their future loads all depend on settling small claims cleanly.

So a $900 bumper scuff on a truck with a $2,500 deductible is not an insurance claim at all. It is a direct conversation with the carrier. A $12,000 repair on that same truck is an insurance claim, and the carrier still eats the first $2,500 of it.

• Damage below the deductible: the carrier pays directly, out of pocket
• Damage above the deductible: the insurer pays the balance above it
• Damage above the policy limit: rare, but the excess falls back on the carrier
• Ask us for the certificate of insurance before pickup — you are entitled to see it

If the carrier fails to pay out of pocket, it is a civil matter

Enterprise Auto Transport is not responsible for any damage to any vehicle. The carrier is solely responsible for damage that occurs while your vehicle is in the carrier's custody, control or possession. If the carrier refuses to pay for damage that falls below its deductible, or if the carrier otherwise fails to make you whole, that dispute is a civil matter between you and the carrier.

We will help you identify the carrier, pull the dispatch record and locate the insurance certificate from our file, but we cannot pay claims, adjudicate disputes or force a carrier to settle. That is the legal boundary between a broker and a carrier under federal transportation law.

Keep your own auto insurance active

Even though the carrier carries cargo insurance, we recommend keeping your own comprehensive and collision coverage active while the vehicle is in transit. Your personal policy may provide a backstop if the carrier's coverage is delayed, denied or insufficient for a specific loss.

Check with your insurance company before the move to confirm whether your policy covers transport-related damage and what documentation they would need. Do not assume the carrier's policy replaces your own.

What we can verify, and what we honestly cannot

We can pull and read a carrier's FMCSA authority status, their safety and inspection history, their Central Dispatch feedback, and their certificate of insurance showing the policy is active on the day of your pickup. We refuse loads to carriers who cannot produce those.

What we cannot do is guarantee how an independent carrier's insurer will adjust a claim, how quickly they respond, or what their deductible will be on your specific load. We are not the insurer and we are not the carrier's employer. Any broker who promises you a guaranteed payout is selling you something they do not control.

The benefits of the broker model

Because carriers are independent, we are not locked into one fleet and one route map. We can shop your lane across a national network, hold carriers to a verification standard, and walk away from any truck whose paperwork does not check out — something a single-fleet company cannot do for you.

When a claim happens we already have the dispatch record, the signed bill of lading, the carrier's insurance certificate and a working relationship with that carrier. That is leverage most customers do not have on their own.

• Access to thousands of vetted carriers instead of one fleet
• Insurance and authority checked before every assignment
• We keep the paper trail that makes a claim provable
• We push the carrier directly — repeat business is our leverage

The risks, stated plainly

The honest risks are these: the carrier's deductible may exceed your damage, which turns the claim into a direct negotiation with the carrier rather than an insurance payout. Claims can take weeks. Some policies exclude acts of nature such as hail on open carriers. Personal items left in the vehicle are never covered. And pre-existing damage that was not documented at pickup will be denied every time.

The single biggest predictor of a successful claim is documentation at pickup — not the size of the policy limit.

• Not covered: personal items left in the vehicle
• Not covered: pre-existing damage not marked on the pickup bill of lading
• Not covered: mechanical failure unrelated to transport
• Often excluded on open carriers: hail, flood and other acts of nature
• Never covered: tolls, tickets and citations incurred in transit

Protect yourself in ten minutes at pickup

Before the driver loads, photograph the truck and trailer, the trailer license plate, and the driver's CDL. Then photograph your car from the front, back, both sides and the top, and take a short video of it actually being loaded. Photos taken the week before do not carry the same weight with an adjuster — they must be from the day of pickup.

At delivery, inspect the car before you sign. Note any new damage on the bill of lading in writing, photograph it immediately, and call us the same day. A signed clean bill of lading is the hardest thing to argue past.

• Photos of the truck, trailer, plate and driver's CDL at pickup
• Photos of all four sides and the roof of your car before loading
• A short video of the car being loaded onto the trailer
• Written notes on the delivery bill of lading before you sign
• Same-day phone call to us so the claim clock starts clean

How a claim actually gets filed

All claims are filed against the carrier and their insurer, not against Enterprise Auto Transport. As the broker we supply the dispatch record, the carrier's insurance information and the bill of lading, and we stay on the carrier until the matter is resolved. We do not carry cargo coverage on your vehicle, and no honest broker does.

If the repair estimate lands under the carrier's deductible, expect the carrier to settle it directly. If it lands above, the insurer takes over and the carrier still absorbs the deductible portion. Either way the carrier — not Enterprise — is the party responsible for making you whole for verified transit damage.