Thursday, October 29, 2026
The news that moves freight
Companies & Markets Oct 29, 2026 · 7 min read

C.H. Robinson beats on Q3, loses 11% on claims

C.H. Robinson beat forecasts and still fell 11%. C.H. Robinson shares fell 11.14% to $127.60 on Wednesday, the day it beat Q3 forecasts with adjusted earnings per share up 28.6%. In our view, investors are pricing the cost of truck-crash lawsuits against freight brokers, not the quarter itself. Claims pushed one cost line up 29.7%. Analysts pressed bosses on insurance during the call, and a $604 million jury verdict hangs over the company. Forwarding profit rose 63% while air tonnage fell 4%. Our call: brokers will add the cost of vetting and insuring carriers to 2027 US trucking quotes, and C.H. Robinson stays below $158 through January.

Crash liability, not the quarter, sent C.H. Robinson down 11%

C.H. Robinson’s share price fell 11.14% on Wednesday 28 October, losing $15.99 to close at $127.60. It was not a bad quarter. The largest US freight broker beat forecasts on profit and revenue, and its forwarding arm grew operating income by almost two-thirds. Investors sold anyway.

Our view: the market is no longer only judging how well brokers buy and sell truck capacity. It is judging how much it costs them when a truck they booked crashes. After a Supreme Court ruling in May and a $604 million jury verdict against C.H. Robinson in July, that cost has gone up, and nobody yet knows by how much. Forwarders who buy US trucking through brokers will help pay for it.

What the numbers said

C.H. Robinson published its third-quarter results on 28 October. Total revenue rose 29.5% to $5.36 billion. Adjusted gross profit rose 14.5% to $808.4 million. Adjusted gross profit is revenue minus what the company pays carriers, a better guide to a broker’s real business. Operating income rose 23.1% to $271.8 million. Adjusted diluted earnings per share rose 28.6% to $1.80.

FreightWaves, citing SeekingAlpha consensus, said earnings per share came in 5 cents above forecasts and revenue about $450 million above. CEO Dave Bozeman called it “another quarter of double-digit year-over-year earnings growth”.

The US trucking arm, North American Surface Transportation (NAST), grew revenue 29.1% to $3.83 billion. Truckload and LTL volumes each rose 3.5%. LTL means less-than-truckload: smaller shipments that share a trailer. FreightWaves noted this compares with a small decline in the Cass Index, a widely used measure of US freight volumes. Adjusted gross profit per truckload shipment rose 17.0%.

That margin was hard-won. FreightWaves reported that C.H. Robinson’s average truckload linehaul rate per mile, excluding fuel, rose 31.5% from a year earlier. Its cost per mile rose 33.5%. In plain terms, C.H. Robinson’s truckload customers are paying about a third more per mile for US truckload than a year ago, and carriers are charging the broker even more.

The company is also doing this with fewer people. Average headcount fell 10.4%. Staff numbered 11,118 at 30 September, against 12,314 a year earlier. Bozeman said “the team continues to turn manual processes into agentic workflows that are increasingly automated, more connected, and easier to manage at scale.” Agentic workflows are AI software that carries out tasks such as quoting or booking with little human input.

The company also returned $289.1 million to shareholders in the quarter: $214.3 million in share buybacks and $74.8 million in dividends.

Where the money went: claims

The weak spot was one cost line. “Other SG&A”, meaning overheads outside staff pay, rose 29.7% to $176.3 million. The release says this was “primarily due to higher claims expenses and an impairment charge on our Kansas City regional center lease”. In NAST alone, operating expenses rose 15.7%, “primarily due to higher claims expenses and higher incentive compensation”.

On the call, CFO Damon Lee raised full-year SG&A guidance to $585–590 million, from $540–580 million, FreightWaves reported. FreightWaves said several analysts asked a significant number of questions about claims, and that one insurance comment from Bozeman appeared to catch analysts off guard.

Management tried to calm them. On the call, Lee said the company benchmarks total insurance and claims costs at about 50 basis points (0.5%) of gross revenue, and is below that so far this year. He said: “We typically look at these types of expenses on a longer trajectory than certainly one quarter”. Bozeman said the company was working through its 2027 insurance renewal, “and we believe this renewal will result in insurance inflation that is reasonable and manageable.” He said most legal cases end “either dismissed or settled for amounts below our deductible.” The company expects final 2027 insurance figures in mid-to-late December.

The market did not wait. Shares had been as high as $158.35 at the start of October, and peaked at $210.33 on 22 July, FreightWaves reported. Wednesday’s close is about 39% below that high.

C.H. Robinson was not alone. Landstar, another US trucking and brokerage group, closed down 17.76% at $138.80 the same day, after its results showed heavier than usual claims charges, FreightWaves reported. Landstar CFO Jim Todd said “claim cost severity has been going up at a decent clip”.

Why broker liability changed this year

Two events explain the nerves.

On 14 May 2026, the US Supreme Court decided Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II. The vote was 9-0. FreightWaves summarised the effect: federal law does not shield freight brokers from state lawsuits alleging they negligently chose an unsafe carrier. For years brokers had argued that the federal trucking deregulation law blocked these “negligent selection” claims. That defence is gone. FreightWaves put it bluntly: “The freight brokerage industry’s federal preemption defense is over.” It added: “If a broker has no documented carrier vetting process, that absence is itself evidence.”

On 23 July, a Dallas County jury returned a verdict of about $604 million in Lipe vs. Lupus Superior. The case stems from a March 2021 crash in Jackson, Mississippi, involving a truck run by Lupus Superior, a carrier booked by C.H. Robinson. Three people were killed, as was the truck’s driver, FreightWaves reported. Supply Chain 24/7 described it as an advisory verdict, still subject to post-trial proceedings. C.H. Robinson said it “should not be held liable and did not act negligently” and that it would appeal. FreightWaves reported on Wednesday that a Dallas County judge has since affirmed the verdict.

The $210.33 peak came on 22 July, the day before that verdict. That timing tells its own story.

What forwarders should read into the forwarding numbers

C.H. Robinson’s Global Forwarding unit had a strong quarter on paper. Revenue rose 46.1% to $1.15 billion. Adjusted gross profit rose 15.4% to $221.2 million. Operating income rose 63.3% to $80.0 million.

Look at volumes and the picture changes. Ocean shipments rose just 2.0%. Air tonnage fell 4.0%. The growth came from margin. Ocean adjusted gross profit per shipment rose 20.5%. Air adjusted gross profit per metric ton rose 28.5%.

Our reading: a top-tier forwarder is earning more on each box and each kilo, not winning much new cargo. Some of that is rate-driven. When freight rates rise, a percentage-style margin rises with them. That income can fade fast when rates fall.

Customs was the soft spot. Customs adjusted gross profit fell 12.9%, and profit per transaction fell 13.0%. Global Forwarding headcount fell 15.8%. With tariffs and customs rules changing all year, customs brokerage should be a growth line. At C.H. Robinson it is shrinking.

The RXO deal raises the stakes

All of this lands while C.H. Robinson tries to buy RXO, another large US broker. The deal was announced on 6 October at an implied $30.25 per RXO share, about $5.8 billion, according to FreshPlaza. About 57% is cash and 43% is C.H. Robinson stock. The cash part will be funded with new debt. Closing is expected in the first half of 2027, subject to regulators and RXO shareholders.

Bozeman said in the results release: “we believe the addition of RXO will only magnify our value proposition.” Brad Jacobs, who created RXO, backed the deal at FreightWaves’ F3 conference this week. He said you need “scale and density” to succeed in brokerage, and added: “I like the part that it was a big chunk in stock”.

The stock part matters. RXO holders are being paid partly in C.H. Robinson shares, which just lost 11% in a day. A bigger broker also means more loads booked, and more carriers whose crashes could lead back to the broker.

What happens next

For forwarders, the practical effect is cost. Brokers now have to document how they vet every carrier, buy more liability cover, and hold reserves for claims. That cost will move into the rate. Expect stricter carrier approval, fewer small carriers on the cheapest US inland quotes, and more contract wording on who carries liability. Forwarders that arrange drayage or inland trucking directly may face the same exposure. They should check that their own carrier vetting is written down.

On the forwarding side, C.H. Robinson’s results show a business growing on margin, not volume. If ocean and air rates soften into the slack season, the 63% profit jump will not repeat.

Our prediction: by the end of Q1 2027, large US brokers will quote 2027 truckload contracts with wider margins and name insurance and claims as the reason. C.H. Robinson will publish its 2027 insurance figure in December or with Q4 results, and it will be higher than investors hoped. Its shares will stay below the start-of-October price of $158.35 through the end of January 2027.

Sources