The holiday season is peak time for identity swaps and quiet MC changes. Capacity is tight, and that’s precisely when some trucking companies start cutting corners with who actually moves your freight.
A pattern keeps showing up: undisclosed carrier substitutions disguised as “sister companies” or buried under lease agreements.
Instead of treating these situations as one-offs, Cassandra Gaines, transportation attorney and CEO of Carrier Assure, has spent years mapping the patterns behind them. Here, we’ll break down the behaviors and red flags that freight brokers and shippers should watch closely this time of year.
1. What double brokering really is (and what it isn’t)
At its simplest, double brokering looks like this:
- You tender a load to Carrier A (the one you put through the carrier vetting process).
- Carrier A quietly hands it to Carrier B.
- Carrier B shows up with a different MC/DOT on the truck than the one you approved.
Co-brokering with transparency and consent is a different story. The line into double-brokering territory is crossed when:
- The handoff isn’t disclosed.
- The MC/DOT on the truck doesn’t match the agreed terms.
- You never had a chance to put the real carrier through the carrier vetting process.
The MC/DOT on the door is the truth. Everything else is a story.
2. The real cost: no coverage, more exposure, bigger lawsuits
Double brokering in the freight industry is often treated like an operational inconvenience, but the real impacts show up in courtrooms, claim disputes, and uninsured losses.
When freight is handed off to a carrier that didn’t go through the carrier vetting process and wasn’t disclosed, it opens the door to higher accident and claim rates, loads seized due to improper authority use, and zero applicable insurance coverage when the wrong VIN or MC is involved.
Recent legal cases have shown the same pattern: the trucking company that was vetted wasn’t the same one on the road, and the logistics broker and shipper became the following logical targets for liability.
3. The “sister company” explanation and what’s actually happening
When a carrier hands off a load without disclosure, the explanations tend to fall into the same categories: “sister company,” “shared trucks,” “same owner,” “all in the family,” or “we’re helping each other out.”
Behind all of these phrases is the same reality: The freight is being moved by a different legal entity than the one that went through the carrier vetting process.
Shared ownership does not change who has active authority, whose insurance applies, and who is responsible for the driver and equipment on the road.
4. The owner-operator angle, and why it doesn’t justify an MC swap
Owner-operators are common in trucking and can lease their services to a motor carrier.
An owner-operator arrangement does not authorize switching MCs on the logistics broker or shipper. If the number on the truck isn’t the one that was vetted, the liability changes instantly, regardless of who the driver “belongs” to.
5. Lease agreements and the clues they reveal
When an MC swap is questioned, it’s common to see a lease agreement sent over as “proof” that everything is legitimate. In practice, lease agreements serve a different purpose: they help you understand relationships, not excuse authority mismatches.
Useful clues include:
- Multiple entities appear throughout the document
- Addresses or phone numbers that don’t match onboarding records
- Additional domains or contacts not previously disclosed
- Signature lines tied to businesses you didn’t know existed
So… what do you actually do when an MC number doesn’t match?
Teams that successfully reduce exposure tend to follow the same principles:
- A strong, repeatable carrier vetting workflow centered on authority, insurance, and performance
- MC/DOT verification before releasing pickup numbers
- Driver and truck confirmation (photo, documentation, or facility verification)
- Visibility into related entities and “carrier clusters”
- Continuous monitoring rather than one-time onboarding checks
The goal is NOT perfection, it’s reducing uncertainty and exposure through consistent, documented carrier vetting. That’s what Carrier Assure was built to support and it's the premier carrier vetting tool.
The platform strengthens carrier vetting and carrier monitoring by giving visibility into what’s actually happening behind each carrier profile.
Carrier Assure helps your teams quickly identify risk with real-time scoring that factors in authority, inspections, crashes, insurance, related entities, and more.
When the pressure is high and the margins are thin, clarity matters. We make sure the carrier you think you hired is the one actually moving your freight.
