Starting March 21, 2011, for-hire carriers and freight forwarders will no longer be required to maintain a minimum in cargo insurance, according to a final rule issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Tuesday
. Carriers and freight forwarders will also no longer need to file evidence of this insurance with the FMCSA.

The new rule does not apply to household goods carriers and freight forwarders, however.

The FMCSA gained jurisdiction over motor carrier and freight forwarder cargo insurance with the enactment of the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999. FMCSA continued to register carriers as either "common' or "contract' under the transition rule because the agency had not yet implemented the new unified registration system. In the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) designed to implement this new system, the agency proposed to eliminate the cargo insurance requirement for all motor carriers and freight forwarders except those involved in the transportation of household goods for individual shippers.

For more information about the rule, go to http://www.regulations.gov.