Knight-Swift Cuts Brokerage Carrier Pool 70%, Predicts Durable Recovery

Knight-Swift Transportation has cut its approved brokerage carrier pool by roughly 70% over the past two years, CEO Adam Miller told attendees at the second annual WEX OTR Summit in Jacksonville, Florida, on Tuesday. The reduction reflects a deliberate tightening of carrier vetting standards driven by cargo theft, highway safety concerns and growing broker liability exposure.

"We're down 70% from maybe two years ago," Miller said. "Because we really vetted the type of carrier that we want."

The overhaul has taken shape over the past three years, partly in response to increasingly sophisticated cargo theft schemes that Miller described as a fundamental shift in threat level.

"Cargo theft went from a couple bad actors to organized crime," he said.

Why a smaller carrier pool could mean a stronger market

Miller's comments come as Knight-Swift reports improving truckload market conditions despite relatively weak freight demand. Available trucking capacity continues to tighten, he said, while national tender rejection rates remain elevated.

Stricter federal enforcement and more selective broker-carrier relationships could prevent another rapid influx of trucking capacity during the next freight upcycle, Miller argued. Those changes could produce a more sustainable recovery rather than the sharp rate spikes and collapses the industry has experienced in recent years.

The summit drew more than 115 attendees, including trucking executives, fuel providers, technology companies and other transportation industry representatives.

How strict is Knight-Swift's carrier screening?

The company requires motor carriers to have operated for at least one year before joining its brokerage network.

"We wouldn't allow a carrier to come into our business unless they've been active for a year," Miller said.

He criticized large freight brokers that have historically allowed newly registered trucking companies to access freight with minimal operating history, creating exposure to fraud, cargo theft and safety-related claims. Longer operating histories, he suggested, give brokers a window to identify risk before tendering loads.

The stakes are particularly high in power-only arrangements, where a contracted carrier supplies a tractor to haul a Knight-Swift trailer — a model the company uses extensively in its brokerage operations.

What does broker liability change?

Miller referenced the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, arguing brokers now face greater legal exposure when hiring trucking companies with questionable safety records.

"Now you have brokers who have some skin in the game if they're negligent in the carrier that they hire to move the load," he said.

He noted that some brokers have historically prioritized lower transportation costs over stringent carrier qualification. Potential legal exposure could push them to scrutinize carrier safety records, operating history and insurance coverage more closely.

"If you're going to be willing to put in, to engage with a carrier that has an unsafe CSA score that's over threshold, you're at risk," Miller warned.

CSA refers to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, which uses inspection, crash and investigation data to flag motor carrier safety concerns. Miller cautioned that CSA scores do not definitively measure a carrier's safety performance, but said unfavorable scores could become a significant factor in litigation.

"When we start dialing in these different criteria you should be using to vet your carriers, the carrier pool you can work with is going to be significantly smaller," he said.

What happens to insurance costs and small carriers?

Major trucking accident verdicts and expanding broker liability could raise insurance costs across the brokerage sector, Miller warned. Insurers may reassess their exposure to claims involving broker-hired carriers and charge higher premiums to account for that risk.

"Brokers are gonna have to pay multiples of what they're paying now to keep the same insurance limits," he said.

Shippers are also growing anxious about potential litigation if a motor carrier's insurance coverage falls short of a large accident judgment. "A lot of concern, a lot of discussions with customers around this topic," Miller said.

More restrictive broker qualification standards could make it harder for newly established trucking companies to obtain loads, particularly those relying on the spot market. Miller said such screening adds another barrier to entry on top of increased federal enforcement of commercial driver's license requirements and other safety regulations.

"That's going to eliminate probably the cheapest capacity, the less compliant carriers out there in the market," he said.

The bottom line, per Miller: a supply-driven recovery could lift transportation rates and extend capacity constraints into 2027, even without a significant rebound in freight volumes.