Product Update: Risk scores & automated carrier monitoring is now live!

Introducing Alerts on Carrier Profiles: Proactive Risk Monitoring Built Around “What Changed”

Today, we’re rolling out a powerful enhancement to carrier profiles: configurable alerts that surface meaningful changes in a carrier’s public DOT footprint. Instead of re-checking profiles manually, your teams can receive targeted notifications about the signals that matter most for safety, compliance, and underwriting. Here’s what you can expect and how to put alerts to work.

What you can monitor with alerts (FMCSA / USDOT context)

Our alerting is designed around “what changed” in a carrier’s public footprint, so you act on meaningful signals rather than chasing noise.

• Safety event monitoring (based on FMCSA-style feeds)

  • New inspections (all): any newly recorded roadside inspection event.
  • New inspections with violations: inspections where violations were cited (helps you focus on “signal,” not just activity).
  • New inspections with Out-of-Service (OOS): inspections resulting in OOS outcomes.
  • Driver vs vehicle OOS: detect whether issues trend on the driver side, equipment side, or both (supports your broader profile monitoring).
  • Passed/clean inspections: useful to confirm improvement after a corrective-action period.
  • New crashes: newly recorded crash events, with severity context (injuries, fatalities, hazmat indicators when available).

• Carrier profile / compliance-change monitoring (DOT profile changes over time)

  • Insurance changes: policy or coverage updates when history is available (flag potential risk or underwriting implications).
  • Contact information changes: phone/email updates.
  • Address changes: physical or mailing address changes.
  • Officer changes: principal/officer field updates.
  • MC/MX/FF authority changes: changes in authority status or attributes.
  • VIN / plate activity: signals of fleet activity that may indicate onboarding/offboarding or changes in fleet composition.

• Risk score / risk profile change monitoring

  • Risk score or grade changes: alert when a carrier’s overall risk assessment moves materially (or changes letter grade), so you react to meaningful shifts rather than noise.

• Alert delivery + cadence

  • Frequency options: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly check-ins.
  • Delivery: alerts can arrive as email notifications and/or show up in an in-app notification feed (with grouping logic to reduce inbox spam when alerts get noisy).

For readers seeking additional context, these signals align with industry data sources like the FMCSA Safer System and related safety data streams. See FMCSA Safer System and FMCSA Safety for reference on how DOT public data is structured.

Practical use cases: who benefits and why

• Freight brokers / carrier sales / operations

  • Prevent “surprise risk” on booked loads: get alerted when a carrier has a new OOS inspection, a crash, or a spike in violations after you’ve already started routing.
  • Triage faster: alerts tell you which carriers changed so your team reviews only exceptions.
  • Fraud/identity red flags: rapid contact/address/officer changes can prompt re-verification before tendering.

• Shippers / procurement / routing guide owners

  • Protect routing guides: monitor approved carriers for deteriorating safety signals and intervene before service failures.
  • Continuous compliance: treat “carrier onboarding” as ongoing—alerts catch changes between quarterly reviews.

• Carrier safety & compliance teams

  • Close the loop after inspections: watch for new inspection records, then confirm improvement via clean/passed inspection alerts.
  • Stay ahead of compliance drift: nudges on insurance/profile changes help keep the public record aligned with internal records.

• Insurance / underwriting / risk teams

  • Early warning: crashes, OOS, and major profile changes can trigger a review before losses compound.
  • Portfolio monitoring at scale: event-driven signals across many DOTs replace lengthy manual checks.

What the Risk Profile looks like (high level)

Our Risk Profile provides an at-a-glance assessment that translates DOT signals into a simple grade and a transparent, actionable rationale.

• Output

  • Letter grade: A–E
  • Numeric score
  • Easy-to-scan breakdown of “what drove it”

• Core factors we evaluate

  • Inspections + violation patterns (including OOS outcomes and recency)
  • Crash history and severity context
  • OOS rates relative to national averages (to spot underperforming trends)
  • Insurance status / coverage signals
  • Authority age / operating history (new/unproven vs. established)
  • Contact stability (completeness and change frequency; outdated filings signals)

• What users see

  • Major risk flags and latest signals (last inspection, last violation, last crash)
  • Timing insights for recent events
  • Recurring issues and top violation themes to guide remediation focus

Getting started: how to configure alerts

1. Open the carrier profile
2. Click Set up alert in the top right corner
3. Choose alert types you want to monitor (e.g., new inspections, new crashes, OOS events, insurance changes, contact changes, risk-score changes)
4. Set cadence for each alert type (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly)
5. Save and test
   • Start with high-severity signals for a single carrier to calibrate noise vs. signal
   • Then roll out to broader carrier groups and fine-tune thresholds

Pro tip: use per-carrier settings to differentiate alert sensitivity. For new or high-risk portfolios, prefer more frequent cadences and broader alert types. For established, vetted carriers, you can tighten triggers and lean on weekly or monthly cadences.

Best practices for effective alerting

• Start with high-severity signals first
  • Prioritize new crashes, new inspections with violations, and OOS events to catch the most impactful changes early.
• Use cadence you can act on
  • Daily digests are powerful for active book-of-business, while monthly can work for risk-monitoring across a large portfolio.
• Leverage in-app feeds to complement email
  • Group related alerts into a digest so your inbox stays manageable; rely on the in-app feed for quick triage.
• Combine alerts with periodic reviews
  • Pair automated alerts with quarterly or semi-annual risk-profile reviews to verify data integrity and calibration of risk scoring.
• Segment by risk appetite
  • Create different alert profiles for brokers, shippers, and underwriting teams to align with their decision thresholds.

What’s next

• If you haven’t yet, enable alerts on carrier profiles and start with a few high-impact signals.
• Consider establishing a baseline: a couple of carriers with daily alerts for new inspections and crashes, plus weekly alerts for risk-score changes.
• Review the alerts regularly and adjust thresholds to balance timely risk detection with noise reduction.

This feature is designed to keep teams aligned around meaningful changes in carrier safety and compliance, while reducing manual checks and inbox clutter. It’s not just about data; it’s about turning public DOT signals into actionable risk management, faster.

If you’d like deeper context on the underlying data sources, you can refer to FMCSA data resources such as the FMCSA Safer System and related safety materials:

• FMCSA Safer System
• FMCSA Safety

Ready to unlock proactive risk monitoring? Go to the carrier profiles in your workspace and start configuring alerts today.