Car Transporter Regs-part II-MC Hammers, Motor Carrier Numbers

When we last left off checking our potential car transporter, we talked about the USDOT number, which each trucking company needs to have.

The next key hoop that a trucking company has to get through is to get a MC or motor carrier number that gives them the authority to transport goods in a given area of the country. That operating authority can be limited to a part of the country or be nationwide depending on the scope of the permit; since the non-defunct Interstate Commerce Commission used to manage that authority, they are sometimes called ICC numbers.

There are a number of requirements to get a MC number. The trucking company has to set up agents in every state that they’re going to do business in. A “BOC-3” (the name of the form to designate them) process agent has to be in place to receive any legal paper work (process being a term for legal paperwork, thus the term “process server” for the folks who hand you subpoenas and other legal paperwork from courts) that may come through lawsuits and other legal issues. If a company doesn’t have an office in a state, they can hire someone from a trucking-support firm to be their process agent in that state.

A few states have special permits need to operate in their state; New York and Kentucky are two of those, so a KYU number notes that they have access to Kentucky and a HUT number does the same for New York.

The auto transport company also has to have insurance; the current minimum coverage required is $750,000 in liability insurance and $5,000 in cargo insurance. However, that is a fairly small amount on the cargo side, and most firms will have far more than that, with $100,000 being the industry standard.