Freight loss is measured through several different lenses: stolen cargo value, recovered property, road crashes, vehicle exposure, insurance requirements and marine casualties. The figures below therefore describe defined populations and periods rather than one interchangeable industry-wide loss rate.
Key Freight Loss Statistics
The most useful headline figures span theft, recovery, roadway events, exposure and container losses:
- In 2022, CargoNet estimated $223,096,368 in U.S. cargo-theft lost value from reported cargo-theft data.
- In 2023, CargoNet estimated $331,965,445 in U.S. cargo-theft lost value from reported cargo-theft data.
- In the FMC’s 2024 assessment, cargo-theft losses could exceed $1 billion when insurer and retailer lost-business costs are included.
- Between November 2022 and March 2023, a TIA member survey reported a 600% increase in cargo theft among surveyed members.
- Between November 2022 and March 2023, the average reported cargo-theft loss exceeded $400,000 in the TIA member survey.
- In 2019, the FBI UCR compilation recorded $139,677,562 of stolen property in 721 documented U.S. cargo-theft incidents.
- In 2019, $3,848,816 of cargo-theft property was recovered in the FBI UCR compilation.
- In 2019, the FBI UCR table reported a 2.8% recovery rate for cargo-theft property based on reported stolen and recovered values.
- In 2019, 184 U.S. agencies reported a cargo-theft incident in the FBI UCR cargo-theft figure.
- In 2019, Tennessee accounted for 238 of the 721 FBI UCR cargo-theft incidents.
- In 2019, large-truck crashes involved 114,000 injury crashes and 158,000 injured persons in the United States.
- In 2021, the large-truck injury-crash rate was 33.6 per 100 million truck VMT in the United States.
- In 2020, FMCSA recorded 332,000 large-truck and bus property-damage-only crashes in the United States.
- In 2022, combination trucks traveled 331,272 million vehicle-miles on all U.S. rural and urban roads.
- In 2022, 14,289,238 combination trucks were registered in the United States.
- The federal minimum financial responsibility for interstate nonhazardous property carriers was $750,000 at the level described in the 2022 FMCSA report.
- On February 6, 2024, the containership President Eisenhower lost 23 containers overboard about 94 miles south of Oakland, California.
- On February 6, 2024, lost cargo and ship damage in the President Eisenhower casualty were estimated at more than $735,000.
Contents
- Key Freight Loss Statistics
- Reported Cargo Theft Loss Statistics
- Cargo Theft Trends, Reporting and Recovery
- State-Level Freight Theft Data
- Large-Truck Crash and Property-Loss Statistics
- Freight Exposure and Insurance Coverage
- Container Loss and Cargo-Weight Failure Statistics
Reported Cargo Theft Loss Statistics
Cargo theft values vary with the reporting system and with what costs are included. The FMC’s report cites CargoNet estimates for reported U.S. cargo-theft losses and separately discusses broader economic effects.
| Period | Measure | Reported figure |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | CargoNet estimated lost value | $223,096,368 |
| 2023 | CargoNet estimated lost value | $331,965,445 |
| 2024 report assessment | Potential broader loss including insurer and retailer lost-business costs | Could exceed $1 billion |
The 2022 and 2023 figures are private-sector estimates cited by the FMC, not a census of every freight movement or theft. The report says actual losses are likely higher, while the more-than-$1-billion figure is an assessment that adds costs beyond the reported value of stolen goods.
The Transportation Intermediaries Association member survey supplied another view of the period from November 2022 through March 2023. It reported a 600% increase in cargo theft among TIA members and an average cargo-theft loss of more than $400,000 per reported theft; these are survey results, not national averages.
The FBI UCR compilation provides an observed 2019 baseline for voluntarily reported incidents. It recorded $139,677,562 of stolen property in 721 documented incidents, covering agencies that reported to the FBI system.
Cargo Theft Trends, Reporting and Recovery
The FBI’s 2019 cargo-theft figures show why theft counts and recovery values must be read together with coverage limitations.
| 2019 FBI UCR measure | Figure | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Documented cargo-theft incidents | 721 | United States reporting agencies |
| Agencies reporting an incident | 184 | United States |
| Stolen property | $139,677,562 | Reported cases |
| Recovered property | $3,848,816 | Reported cases |
| Recovery rate | 2.8% | Reported stolen value |
Source: Cargo Theft, 2019.
The 2.8% recovery rate is the FBI table’s reported share of stolen value recovered. It does not estimate the probability that any individual shipment will be recovered, and agencies with no report or no participation are not represented.
The FMC report explicitly warns that private estimates may represent only a fraction of actual losses because cargo theft is underreported. That limitation applies when comparing the observed FBI compilation with CargoNet or survey-based estimates.
State-Level Freight Theft Data
The FBI UCR table records substantial differences among reporting states, but the figures remain reported property values rather than complete estimates of freight loss.
| State, 2019 | Incidents | Stolen value | Recovered value | Recovery share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 102 | $125,809,354 | $680,322 | 0.5% |
| Tennessee | 238 | $1,918,160 | $500,015 | 26.1% |
| Texas | 128 | $4,881,599 | $1,186,081 | 24.3% |
| Ohio | — | $443,691 | $242,670 | — |
| Oregon | — | $93,146 | $92,946 | — |
Source: Cargo Theft, 2019.
Florida, Tennessee and Texas accounted for 102, 238 and 128 reported incidents respectively in 2019. The table also reports 34 incidents and $2,731,532 of stolen property for Kentucky, and 27 incidents and $765,084 for Virginia.
The state results are not directly comparable as a measure of risk without accounting for reporting participation, freight flows and incident definitions. Ohio and Oregon illustrate why a recovery percentage should not be inferred when the supplied state entry provides only stolen and recovered values without a stated percentage.
Large-Truck Crash and Property-Loss Statistics
Road crashes are related to freight exposure but are not direct cargo-loss claims. FMCSA’s large-truck series reports injury crashes and injured persons, while its property-damage-only table covers vehicle-crash events.
| Year | Injury crashes | Injured persons | Injury crashes per 100 million truck VMT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 107,000 | 151,000 | 35.0 |
| 2019 | 114,000 | 158,000 | 38.0 |
| 2020 | 99,000 | 142,000 | 33.2 |
| 2021 | 110,000 | 155,000 | 33.6 |
Source: 2023 Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics.
The FMCSA series uses large-truck vehicle-miles traveled as its denominator. The source describes the injury-crash figures as estimates in the underlying series, so they should not be converted into a freight-dollar loss rate.
For 2020, FMCSA’s property-damage-only trend table reports 332,000 large-truck and bus PDO crashes, 351,000 large trucks and buses involved, and a rate of 11.4 PDO crashes per 100 million VMT. These are crash and vehicle-involvement statistics, not measures of cargo value lost.
Source: Trends Table 3. Large Truck and Bus Property Damage Only (PDO) Crash Statistics, 2000-2020.
Freight Exposure and Insurance Coverage
Exposure measures provide scale for interpreting freight-loss counts, but they do not imply that miles carried freight or that a loss occurred. FHWA recorded 327,026 million vehicle-miles for combination trucks in 2021 and 331,272 million in 2022 across all rural and urban roads.
The same FHWA table recorded 13,822,575 registered combination trucks in 2021 and 14,289,238 in 2022. Registration counts are not the same as the number of active freight-hauling vehicles.
Source: Highway Statistics 2022, Table VM-1: Annual Vehicle Distance Traveled in Miles and Related Data.
Insurance requirements also describe financial responsibility rather than measured cargo loss or the amount ultimately paid on a claim:
- The federal minimum financial responsibility for interstate nonhazardous property carriers was $750,000 at the level described in the 2022 FMCSA report.
- The federal minimum for certain hazardous-material property carriage was $5 million.
- The federal minimum for other hazardous-material property carriage was $1 million.
Source: Financial Responsibility Report to Congress, Final May 2022.
These are public-liability minimums for specified regulatory categories, not cargo-insurance limits. The hazardous-material thresholds apply to the categories described by FMCSA and not to every hazardous-material movement.
Container Loss and Cargo-Weight Failure Statistics
The National Transportation Safety Board’s President Eisenhower findings provide a detailed marine case study rather than a fleet-wide container-loss rate. On February 6, 2024, the containership lost 23 containers overboard and damaged another 10 about 94 miles south of Oakland, California.
The estimated value of lost cargo and ship damage exceeded $735,000, a combined estimate rather than cargo loss alone. None of the 23 lost containers contained hazardous materials.
Source: Cargo Lost Due to Incorrect Cargo Weight Data.
The NTSB also identified a cargo-loading data failure connected with a January 31, 2024 loading operation at the Port of Los Angeles. Booking staff manually entered cargo weights for 40 containers after a booking-system error, and 39 of those weights were entered incorrectly.
For those 39 containers, the actual verified gross masses were 18.3 to 22.2 metric tons greater per container than the values used in the loading plan. This range applies only to the incorrectly entered containers in the President Eisenhower incident and should not be generalized into an industry-wide container-weight error rate.