The fraud driving US and Canadian cargo theft losses to an estimated $725 million in 2025 - a 60% jump from $455 million in 2024 per Verisk CargoNet's 2025 Supply Chain Risk Trends report - is increasingly generating liability claims against freight brokers and forwarders rather than simply direct cargo losses. Impersonation-based schemes, in which criminal networks pose as legitimate carriers or brokers using stolen credentials, phishing and compromised business email accounts, expose the original broker to negligence and E&O claims when a shipper or carrier discovers the fraud. Double brokering - where a contracted carrier secretly reassigns a load to an unauthorized party with no verified insurance or compliance history - creates the same liability exposure when a shipper or carrier is left unpaid or uninsured. Traditional cargo policies address direct loss of goods. They do not address the liability fallout when the fraud involves a broker's identity, credentials or contracting decisions.
Now, Amwins Program Underwriters has restructured its Logistics Operations Program around that liability shift, anchored by its proprietary FreightLock coverage form, which combines freight forwarders', motor carriers', warehouse, transportation broker and errors and omissions liability into a single placement. Coverage is placed through Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's on a non-admitted basis, with monoline options available for added flexibility. The program targets domestic and international freight forwarders, transportation brokers, non-vessel operating common carriers, indirect air carriers, 3PL and 4PL providers, warehouse operators and customs house brokers.
The liability exposure from fraud is arriving simultaneously with a regulatory shift that tightens the financial responsibility baseline for the entire freight broker and forwarder sector. FMCSA's Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility Rule took full effect on January 16, 2026, tightening the $75,000 BMC-84 bond and BMC-85 trust fund requirements that brokers and forwarders must maintain to hold operating authority. The rule bars loan and finance companies from serving as BMC-85 trustees - a structure FMCSA linked to broker insolvency and fraud risk through illiquid, loosely regulated asset backing - and requires real-time notification when a broker's security falls short, triggering fast suspensions of operating authority. FMCSA has estimated that more than 90% of current BMC-85 providers will no longer qualify under the new standards.
For retail agents placing logistics business, the combination is specific: clients facing growing E&O and negligence exposure from impersonation fraud and double brokering, alongside compliance disruption from a rule that will disqualify most of their existing bond and trust fund providers. A single-form program that consolidates the liability coverage and reduces ambiguity about which policy responds to which incident addresses both problems at the placement stage rather than at the claims stage.
Confirmed cargo theft incidents rose 18% to 2,646 in 2025, with the average loss per event climbing 36% year-on-year to approximately $274,000 per CargoNet. First-half 2026 losses had already topped $359 million. A 2025 American Transportation Research Institute report found cargo theft costs the average motor carrier $520,000 annually, with roughly 75% of stolen freight never recovered.
Jon Beckham, president of Amwins Program Underwriters, said logistics was moving faster and growing more complex, requiring partners who could keep pace. Heather Frain, senior vice president and head of Inland Marine for APU, said the enhancements were designed to simplify coverage and reduce ambiguity for agents navigating those conditions.
The program update builds on APU's logistics and marine cargo investment. In 2024, APU expanded its Marine Cargo and Stock Throughput program through a new carrier relationship with Great American Insurance Group, increasing available limits from $15 million to $25 million. APU operates as a managing general agency with roughly $550 million in annual premium across 35 niche programs.
With freight crime and compliance requirements both intensifying in 2026, demand for specialized logistics liability coverage that addresses the liability fallout from fraud - rather than simply the direct cargo loss - looks likely to keep growing alongside them.
