FMCSA Alerts

The platform monitors FMCSA data daily for every carrier with an active policy. When something changes — authority revoked, safety rating downgraded, insurance lapsed, or CSA scores spike — an alert appears directly in the submission view.

Where alerts appear

Open any submission with a DOT number. The FMCSA Safety Profile panel at the bottom shows a section called FMCSA Alerts when there are unacknowledged alerts for that carrier.

Each alert shows:

• Severity — critical (red), high (amber), or medium (blue)
• Title — what changed (e.g., “Operating authority revoked”)
• Description — details about the change
• Date — when the alert was generated

Alert types

Alert	Severity	What it means
Authority revoked	Critical	FMCSA revoked the carrier’s operating authority
Authority suspended	Critical	Authority changed to inactive or out-of-service
Insurance lapse	Critical	Carrier no longer shows active insurance filing with FMCSA
Safety rating downgrade	High	Rating went from Satisfactory to Conditional or worse
Chameleon detected	High	Carrier legal name or address changed (possible chameleon company)
CSA BASIC alert	Medium	A CSA BASIC score crossed the 75th percentile intervention threshold
OOS rate spike	Medium	Vehicle or driver out-of-service rate exceeds 2x the national average
Crash increase	Medium	New crashes reported since last check

Danger

Critical alerts require immediate action. A carrier with revoked authority or lapsed insurance cannot legally operate. Contact the insured and consider cancellation or non-renewal.

Acknowledging alerts

Click the Ack button on any alert to acknowledge it. This marks it as reviewed — it won’t disappear until acknowledged. Acknowledged alerts are still stored for audit purposes.

To acknowledge multiple alerts at once, use the bulk acknowledge feature (available via the API).

How monitoring works

1. A daily cron job runs at 6:00 AM UTC
2. For each carrier with a DOT number, it calls three FMCSA endpoints:
   • /carriers — authority status, operating status, carrier details
   • /basics — CSA BASIC percentile scores (7 categories)
   • /oos — vehicle and driver out-of-service rates
3. Fresh data is compared against what’s stored in the database
4. If material changes are detected, alerts are generated
5. The carrier record is updated with fresh scores

Note

FMCSA data is typically updated monthly. The daily check ensures you catch changes within 24 hours of FMCSA publishing them.

Viewing alert counts

The alert count badge on submissions shows how many unacknowledged alerts exist for that carrier. This lets you quickly spot carriers that need attention without opening each submission.

Data history

All FMCSA API responses are stored as timestamped snapshots. This means you can see how a carrier’s safety profile has changed over time — useful for renewals, underwriting decisions, and regulatory inquiries.