MCS-90B: The Federal Insurance Endorsement for Interstate Passenger Trips

What the MCS-90B endorsement is

MCS-90B is a two-page federal form your insurer attaches to your commercial auto policy. Its full name is the Endorsement for Motor Carrier Policies of Insurance for Public Liability under Section 18 of the Bus Regulatory Reform Act of 1982. That law, now 49 U.S.C. 31138, sets the minimum liability coverage for carrying passengers for pay across state lines.

The endorsement is your proof that you meet that minimum. Under 49 CFR 387.31(d), you keep it at your principal place of business. It is public information: under 387.31(e), you must produce it when a member of the public reasonably asks to see it. It must be issued in the exact name of your company (49 CFR 387.39).

As of October 2026, the current form is revision July 7, 2024. Its OMB expiration date of June 30, 2027 concerns only FMCSA’s paperwork approval. The form says the requirement itself does not expire.

MCS-90B, MCS-90, and the surety bond versions

Four federal forms prove the same kind of promise. The B forms are for passenger carriers, which is what a NEMT company is, and the others are for trucking companies.

Form	What it is	Who uses it
MCS-90B	Endorsement on an insurance policy	For-hire passenger carriers on interstate trips
MCS-82B	Surety bond issued by a surety company	For-hire passenger carriers, instead of the endorsement
MCS-90	Endorsement on an insurance policy	Property carriers
MCS-82	Surety bond	Property carriers, instead of the endorsement

The property rules sit in subpart A of part 387 and set different floors, such as $750,000 for a for-hire truck rated 10,001 pounds or more hauling ordinary freight across state lines (49 CFR 387.9). If an agent hands you an MCS-90, ask for the passenger form.

The endorsement is also not the same as the insurance filing behind your operating authority. That filing is a certificate your insurer submits to FMCSA on Form BMC-91 or BMC-91X, or a surety’s Form BMC-82 bond. Federal rules require the policy behind that certificate to carry the matching endorsement (49 CFR 387.311(c)). The USDOT number guide walks through the filings and fees.

When a NEMT company needs MCS-90B

The passenger rules apply to for-hire motor carriers transporting passengers in interstate or foreign commerce (49 CFR 387.27). For-hire carriage means carrying passengers for compensation, so a ride paid by Medicaid, a broker, or a health plan counts. The law behind the rules reaches three kinds of paid trip: from a place in one state to another state, to a place outside the United States, or between two places in the same state by way of another state (49 U.S.C. 31138(a)). FMCSA’s definition of interstate commerce also counts a ride between two places in your state that is one leg of a trip starting or ending outside it (49 CFR 390.5T), which can include the drive to the airport for a flight to care in another state. Once you run any of them, you must have the coverage in place before you operate (49 CFR 387.31(a)).

The minimums depend on seats, counting the driver (49 CFR 387.33T):

• Vehicles seating 15 or fewer: $1.5 million.
• Any vehicle seating 16 or more: $5 million.

The rule leaves out a few services (49 CFR 387.27(b)). The two closest to NEMT are taxicab service in a vehicle seating fewer than 7 passengers that does not run a regular route, and a vehicle carrying fewer than 16 people on one daily round trip to and from work. Federal law sets a different rule for rides inside a transit service area under a government agreement funded by a federal transit grant (sections 5307, 5310, or 5311). The federal minimums do not apply to that service, and if the service area spans more than one state, the floor is the highest amount any of those states requires (49 U.S.C. 31138(e)(4)). FMCSA’s rule that spelled this out, 49 CFR 387.33(b), has been suspended since January 14, 2017, so if you run grant-funded trips across a state line, ask FMCSA which minimum applies to you.

Trips that stay inside your state, and are not one leg of an interstate trip, are outside subpart B. They follow your state’s insurance laws, its NEMT license rules, and your broker’s contract, which can ask for more. See NEMT insurance requirements for those limits, and out-of-state NEMT trips for what to check before you accept a ride that crosses the line.

What the endorsement promises the public

The MCS-90B is written for the people your vans could hurt, not for you. In it, the insurer agrees to pay any final judgment against you for public liability caused by negligence in operating, maintaining, or using your vehicles. The form defines public liability as bodily injury, property damage, and environmental restoration. The promise holds:

• whether or not the vehicle is listed in the policy,
• wherever the crash happens, inside or outside your usual service area,
• even if a policy condition was broken, and
• even if your company is insolvent or bankrupt.

If the insurer does not pay, the injured person can sue the insurer directly. The limits apply separately to each accident, so paying one claim does not shrink what is left for the next crash.

Two things are outside the promise: injuries to your own employees on the job, and property you carry as cargo. An employee driver hurt in the crash is a workers’ compensation claim.

The promise also reaches only the company named on the endorsement. FMCSA’s guidance of October 5, 2005 says these forms do not require an insurer to pay a judgment against anyone other than the named carrier or its fiduciary. A subcontractor running trips for you needs its own coverage.

What you owe the insurer after it pays

The endorsement changes what the insurer owes the public. It does not change your deal with the insurer. Every term and exclusion in your policy stays binding between you and the company. You agree to repay the insurer for any payment it would not have owed under the policy alone.

Here is how that plays out. Say your insurer added an endorsement that excludes one of your drivers by name after two speeding tickets. On a short-staffed Monday, dispatch sends that driver on a dialysis trip from your town to a clinic across the state line, and the van rear-ends a car. The other driver wins a $400,000 judgment against your company.

Your policy does not cover a crash by an excluded driver. The MCS-90B, though, says no policy limitation or endorsement relieves the insurer of paying the judgment. So the insurer pays the $400,000, then bills your company for the full amount under the reimbursement clause. The injured driver is made whole, and the gap in your policy has become your debt. The same can happen with a van your policy does not cover, such as one you bought but never reported to your insurer. See commercial auto symbols for the 30-day rule on scheduled autos.

So the endorsement is no substitute for a policy that fits your fleet. Keep excluded drivers off every trip, report each new van to your insurer on time, and read the exclusions with your agent.

How to check your MCS-90B before a paid trip across a state line

1. Get a copy from your insurer. Check that it shows your exact legal name, your USDOT number, the policy number it amends, and the effective date.
2. Read the limit box. The form marks the policy as primary or excess and states the dollar limit for each accident. An excess policy’s endorsement also shows the underlying limit it sits above. Federal law lets you reach the minimum from more than one source if the total meets it: $1.5 million, or $5 million if any vehicle seats 16 or more (49 U.S.C. 31138(c)(3)).
3. Check the insurer’s license. The insurer must be authorized in each state you operate in, or in your home state with an agent for legal papers in the others, or be an eligible surplus lines insurer with such an agent (49 CFR 387.35).
4. File it at your main office. Keep the endorsement where you can hand it over on request.
5. Confirm the FMCSA filing. If you hold operating authority, your insurer files the BMC-91 or BMC-91X certificate. FMCSA’s Licensing and Insurance site lists interstate for-hire carriers that hold authority or have applied for it. FMCSA revokes or suspends authority when the required insurance is not on file (Federal Register notice of April 29, 2026).
6. Watch the cancellation clock. Either side can cancel on 35 days of written notice, plus 30 days of notice to FMCSA for a carrier that must register for authority. If a notice arrives, line up replacement coverage before the date, or stop interstate trips.

For whether you need operating authority at all, see passenger carrier operating authority.