Commercial Truck Accident Claims in Texas

Fact-checked against primary sources October 3, 2026

A crash with a commercial truck brings federal rules into a claim that a crash between two cars does not. For-hire interstate carriers must hold set minimum amounts of financial responsibility, and carriers must keep logs of their drivers' hours and a qualification file on each driver they employ. Those same rules say how long the records have to be kept, and some of those periods are short. The claim itself still moves through the steps in our guide to how a car accident claim works; this page covers what the carrier rules add.

Which trucks the federal insurance rules reach

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's financial responsibility rules sit in subpart A of 49 CFR part 387. Section 387.1 says their purpose is to give carriers added incentive to operate safely and to make sure they keep an appropriate level of financial responsibility for vehicles on public highways. Under section 387.3 the subpart applies to:

for-hire carriers hauling property in interstate or foreign commerce; and
carriers hauling hazardous materials, hazardous substances or hazardous wastes in interstate, foreign or intrastate commerce.

With further exceptions, it does not apply to a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating under 10,001 pounds, unless that vehicle carries any quantity of certain Division 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.3 or 6.1 hazardous materials, or a highway route controlled quantity of Class 7 material, in interstate or foreign commerce.

The minimum coverage a carrier must have

Section 387.7(a) bars a motor carrier from operating a vehicle until it has the minimum financial responsibility set in section 387.9 in effect. Section 387.9 was amended at 91 FR 45660 (July 21, 2026). The current eCFR text, which the eCFR reported as up to date as of October 1, 2026, sets out these levels in Table 1, under a column headed "January 1, 1985":

Type of carriage	What is hauled	Minimum
For-hire, interstate or foreign, 10,001 pounds or more	Nonhazardous property	$750,000
For-hire and private, interstate, foreign or intrastate, 10,001 pounds or more	Hazardous substances in bulk in cargo tanks, portable tanks or hopper-type vehicles; listed Division 1.1 to 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 6.1 materials in bulk; or highway route controlled quantities of Class 7 material	$5,000,000
For-hire and private, 10,001 pounds or more (any quantity interstate or foreign; bulk only intrastate)	Oil and other listed hazardous materials not in the rows above or below	$1,000,000
For-hire and private, interstate or foreign, under 10,001 pounds	Listed Division 1.1 to 1.3, 2.3 and 6.1 materials in bulk, or highway route controlled quantities of Class 7 material	$5,000,000

These figures are the floor the regulation requires a carrier to hold. They describe the carrier's coverage, not the amount of any claim.

Proof of coverage is public

A carrier must keep proof of its coverage at its principal place of business. Section 387.7(d) accepts three forms of proof: an MCS-90 insurance endorsement, an MCS-82 surety bond, or written FMCSA authorization to self-insure, provided the motor carrier maintains a satisfactory safety rating. Under section 387.7(e)(1), that proof is public information and must be produced for review on reasonable request by a member of the public.

Records that can involve more than one carrier or policy

Several federal rules bear on which companies and which policies a truck's records point to.

A defined term for the insurance rules. Section 387.5 is a definition for the insurance subpart only. It defines "motor carrier" to include the carrier's agents, officers and representatives, and employees responsible for hiring, supervising, training, assigning or dispatching drivers, or for maintaining equipment.
A driver can work for more than one carrier. The driving limits in section 395.3 count a driver's time "regardless of the number of motor carriers using the driver's services." That wording sets the hours limit; it does not decide who is liable for a crash. When a driver works for more than one carrier in a 24-hour period, section 395.8(j) requires the driver to give each carrier a copy of the duty record showing all duty time and the name of each carrier served.
Policies change hands. A carrier or its insurer may cancel coverage on 35 days' written notice (section 387.7(b)(1)). When a policy is replaced, the old insurer's liability for later events ends on the replacement's effective date or at the end of that 35-day period, whichever comes first (section 387.7(c)). Which policy was in force on the date of the crash turns on those dates.

When more than one party may share the blame, Texas divides it using the proportionate responsibility rules in chapter 33 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Every party in the case, along with any settling person or designated responsible third party, is assigned a share of responsibility by the judge or jury (section 33.003). Each liable defendant pays only its own share unless it is found more than 50 percent responsible, which makes it jointly and severally liable, or acted with specific intent to do harm in concert with another person to commit one of the Penal Code offenses the statute lists (section 33.013). A defendant that wants to bring an outside party into that allocation must move to designate it as a responsible third party no later than the 60th day before trial, unless the court finds good cause (section 33.004(a)). Our guide to shared fault covers the percentages in more depth.

Hours-of-service logs

Truck logs record a driver's time against federal driving limits. For drivers of property-carrying commercial vehicles, section 395.3 sets these rules, subject to exceptions in section 395.1, which this page does not cover:

a driver may not drive without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty;
a driver may not drive after the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty, and may drive a total of 11 hours inside that window;
after 8 hours of driving, a break of at least 30 consecutive minutes is required, with an exception for drivers who qualify as short-haul;
no driving after 60 hours on duty in 7 consecutive days, or 70 hours in 8 consecutive days if the carrier runs vehicles every day of the week; and
either period may restart after 34 or more consecutive hours off duty.

Drivers of passenger-carrying commercial vehicles follow section 395.5 instead: no more than 10 hours of driving after 8 consecutive hours off duty, and no driving after 15 hours on duty.

What the carrier has to record

Section 395.8 requires most carriers to have each driver record duty status for every 24-hour period on an electronic logging device (ELD), unless one of the listed exceptions allows a paper log. The record divides the day into off duty, sleeper berth, driving and on duty not driving, and notes the city or town at each change. The same section bars any driver or carrier from making a false report of duty status or tampering with an ELD so it does not accurately record and keep the required data (section 395.8(e)).

Section 395.11 adds supporting documents that let the log be checked. For each driver and each 24-hour period, the carrier must keep documents from these categories that it generates or receives in the normal course of business:

bills of lading, itineraries, schedules or similar documents showing where each trip started and ended;
dispatch records and trip records;
expense receipts tied to on-duty time that is not driving;
electronic mobile communication records sent through a fleet management system; and
payroll records and settlement sheets showing payment to the driver.

A carrier need not keep more than eight supporting documents for a driver's 24-hour period. If it has more than eight, the ones it keeps must include those with the earliest and latest time indications (section 395.11(d)). The carrier must keep them in a way that matches them to the driver's duty record, and no carrier or driver may obscure, deface, destroy or alter information in a supporting document (section 395.11(e), (f)).

Driver qualification files

Under section 391.51, each carrier must keep a driver qualification file for each driver it employs. The file includes the driver's employment application, the motor vehicle record from each state licensing authority, the road test certificate or an accepted equivalent, the record from the annual driving record inquiry, a note on the annual review of that record, and the medical examiner's certificate.

Why truck records can go stale

Each of these record types has its own minimum retention period in the regulations:

Record	How long the regulation says to keep it
Records of duty status and supporting documents (carrier)	At least 6 months from the date of receipt (section 395.8(k)(1))
Duty records carried by the driver	The previous 7 consecutive days (section 395.8(k)(2))
Driver qualification file	For the length of the driver's employment and three years after (section 391.51(c))
Annual driving record, annual review note and medical certificate	May be removed three years after the date of execution (section 391.51(d))

The six-month period for logs and supporting documents is much shorter than the two-year period to file an injury lawsuit under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 16.003. The federal sections quoted here set minimums and say nothing about pending claims or lawsuits. The deadline to sue guide explains when that two-year period starts.

Where the rest of the claim goes

Past these federal layers, the Texas rules in our other settlements guides apply. Under Insurance Code section 1952.103, a vehicle counts as underinsured when its collectible liability limits were lower than the injured person's own underinsured motorist limit to begin with, or have been paid down below it by claims from the same accident, and our uninsured and underinsured motorist guide explains how that coverage pays. For other claim types and local resources, the settlements section and the full guide library list the other topics this site covers.