Cyber Liability Insurance for Freight Brokers
You have no fleet and no warehouse. What you have is a registration, a bond and a reputation, which is exactly what gets stolen. Cyber Insurance Group has agents dedicated to cyber liability, comparing broker coverage across 12+ A-rated carriers.
Compare your brokerage across 12+ A-rated carriers in about 4 minutes. Free, no obligation, and no need to know your limits in advance. We are an independent agency, so the recommendation is based on what covers your risk, not on one carrier’s product sheet.
Get My QuoteYour Company Name Is the Asset
A broker is a trusted intermediary with nothing physical to steal, which concentrates the entire risk in who people believe you are.
Impersonation beats intrusion
Presenting as your company is enough to book and move freight. No network has to be breached for your name to be used.
The relationship data
Carrier lists, rate confirmations, insurance certificates and shipper contacts are everything needed to be convincing to both sides.
Payments move fast
Quick-pay and factoring arrangements mean money leaves before a discrepancy is noticed.
Authority is conditional
Your registration depends on a bond staying in force, so disputes arising from misuse of your identity reach your ability to operate.
The Registration Is the Thing Being Stolen
Understanding what a broker actually owns explains why the attack looks the way it does.
What the regulation requires
A property broker must have a surety bond or trust fund of $75,000 in effect, and FMCSA will not register a broker until one is in place for the full prescribed limits. The registration remains effective only as long as that bond or trust fund does. Source: 49 CFR 387.307.
Why that shapes the cyber exposure
Your authority to operate is a status that has to be maintained rather than a thing you own outright. That makes the business unusually sensitive to anything that puts the bond or the reputation behind it under pressure, including losses caused by somebody else operating under your name.
Which is why it is identity, not intrusion
A criminal does not need to get inside your systems to use your business. They need your carrier packet, your letterhead, a lookalike domain and enough of your relationship data to sound routine. The question after a loss is not only what was taken but how your identity became usable, and that is a forensic exercise most cargo policies will not fund.
What each kind of logistics business controls
- Freight brokers hold a federal registration and a bond. Your identity in the market is the asset, which is why it gets stolen rather than hacked.
- Motor carriers hold a federally required device in every truck that logs where the driver is and what is on the trailer.
- Warehousing and 3PL hold other companies’ goods, and the only reliable record of where inside your building they are.
- Movers and storage hold a federally required itemized list of everything inside one family’s home, filed with both of their addresses.
Why it changes the policy conversation
Ask whether the wording responds when the compromise is of your identity rather than your network, and whether social engineering and funds transfer fraud cover reaches payments induced by someone impersonating your company. Our data breach response guide walks through the sequence.
Built for a Loss That Starts With Your Name
Establishing what happened
Incident response coverage funds working out how credentials or identity were obtained, which is the question everyone will ask.
Claims from shippers
Third-party liability funds the defense when a customer alleges your compromise led to their loss.
Induced payments
Funds transfer fraud and social engineering cover respond to payments made on fraudulent instruction, within their sublimits.
Keeping the board running
Business interruption responds when your TMS or load board access is unusable and loads cannot be covered.
Before You Decide
The objections we actually hear from business owners, answered straight.
Why are freight brokers targeted through identity rather than hacking?
Because the identity is the business. A broker has no fleet and no warehouse; what it has is an FMCSA registration, a bond and a reputation that carriers and shippers rely on. Someone who can convincingly present as your company can book freight, move it and collect for it without touching your network at all, which is why this looks like fraud long before anyone treats it as a cyber incident.
What does the bond requirement have to do with cyber risk?
It sets the stakes on your registration. A property broker must have a surety bond or trust fund of $75,000 in effect, and FMCSA will not register a broker until one is, with the registration remaining effective only as long as it stays in effect. Your authority to operate is therefore a continuously maintained status, and claims against the bond arising from someone impersonating you are still claims against yours.
Is double brokering a cyber incident or just fraud?
Usually both, and treating it as only the second is how brokers miss the cause. The fraud is the re-brokered load and the payment that disappears. The cyber part is how the credentials, the email thread or the carrier packet were obtained in the first place, which is the question your insurer and your customer will both ask.
Our load board account was compromised. What is actually exposed?
More than the account. Load board and TMS access typically reaches your carrier list, rate confirmations, shipper contacts, insurance certificates and payment details, which together are everything needed to impersonate you convincingly to both sides of a transaction. The account is the door; the relationship data is what gets taken through it.
Do our shippers hold us responsible for a carrier we never vetted?
They will argue it, and your contracts will decide it. Where a load is given to a fraudulent carrier using stolen credentials, the shipper’s loss is real and the question becomes whether your vetting was reasonable. Defense costs start immediately regardless of the answer, and cargo policies generally do not fund that argument.
What does cyber liability insurance not cover for a freight broker?
It does not pay for the cargo, which is a cargo or contingent cargo question, and it does not replace a bond claim. It does not cover a rate dispute or a carrier’s own negligence. It covers the incident response, the investigation into how your identity was taken, the liability claims against you, and the interruption to your operation.
What Would Cyber Liability Insurance Cost Your Brokerage?
Pricing follows load volume, how carriers are vetted and onboarded, how payment changes are verified, and the controls you can evidence. See the breakdown in our cost guide, or get a number for your business.
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