Fleet Trucking Insurance: Why Mid-Size Carriers Overpay and What to Do About It

Commercial trucking insurance has been climbing for most of a decade, and the newest data shows no sign of it slowing. ATRI's 2026 Update on the operational costs of trucking, released in July, found that liability and cargo premiums rose 3.9 percent in 2025 to about $0.106 per mile. Early 2026 looks worse. In the first quarter, per-mile premiums ran 6.4 percent above the 2025 average, while most other cost categories rose around 2 percent. One analysis of ATRI data puts premiums roughly 2 cents per mile higher than in 2020, an increase of about 39 percent, over a period when injury and fatal crash counts have fallen from 2019 levels.

Insurance is not the largest line in a fleet's budget. At $0.106 against an average operating cost of $2.336 per mile, it is about 4.5 percent of the total, well behind driver pay, fuel, and equipment. What makes it worth this much attention is the direction it is moving, and the fact that unlike most cost lines, a fleet can change what it pays through preparation rather than capital. ATRI's authors note that the commercial auto segment of the insurance industry has been unprofitable in all but one of the last ten years, in part because of rising crash costs and litigation payouts, which is the pressure underwriters are pricing against.

Most coverage of this issue explains what is driving premiums up. This article focuses on what a mid-size fleet can control. It covers four areas where mid-size fleets commonly overpay, then a newer pressure that emerged in May: what brokers now expect from your policy after the Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery v. Caribe.

Why Mid-Size Fleets Pay More Per Mile Than Large Carriers

The premium gap between fleet sizes is real and documented. In earlier ATRI reporting, larger carriers paid approximately 7.7 cents less per mile than small carriers on insurance, a difference that adds up quickly across millions of annual miles. Geography matters too: the 2026 Update puts the Northeast at $0.12 per mile and the Midwest at $0.10.

The gap exists because of how commercial auto underwriting works. Insurers start from actuarial tables built on industry-wide claim frequency and severity for carriers of similar size, equipment class, and operating territory, then adjust based on verifiable risk data the carrier presents. Large carriers have teams dedicated to managing that presentation: safety departments generating continuous documentation, loss control programs with measurable outcomes, and brokers who specialize in large account transportation coverage.

Most mid-size fleets arrive at renewal with a loss run, a basic application, and whatever their broker assembles. Underwriters price what they can see. When they cannot see documented evidence of safety improvement, CSA performance, telematics data, and driver qualification files, they price at the actuarial baseline or above it. That baseline reflects the whole industry, including poorly managed operations, so a well-run 40-truck fleet can end up paying rates shaped by the worst performers in its size category simply because it has not given underwriters the data to price it differently.

The four areas below are where that gap most often lives.

Area 1: The Nuclear Verdict Premium Nobody Explained to You

Nuclear verdicts, jury awards of $10 million or more, are the main reason insurers give for rising commercial auto rates. The newest data is more nuanced than the headline version.

Marathon Strategies' 2026 report counted nearly 200 nuclear verdicts across all industries in 2025, up 40.7 percent from 2024 and the highest count in the firm's data, which goes back to 2009. The dollar total was $25.6 billion, below the $31.3 billion recorded the year before, and juries returned more than 40 thermonuclear verdicts of $100 million or more for the second consecutive year, including four above $1 billion. For trucking and automotive specifically, the picture was worse than the overall total suggests: awards nearly tripled to $3.4 billion across 12 cases, up from $1.4 billion across 15 cases in 2024. Juries in Texas, California, Florida, and Maryland produced the largest totals.

There is also a reform story inside those numbers that the headline totals hide. Marathon found that most of Florida's $2.5 billion in 2025 awards came from 16 of 20 lawsuits that were already in the pipeline before the state's tort reform law was signed on March 24, 2023. Eight states enacted tort reform in 2025, including caps and disclosure rules for third-party litigation funders. Reform takes years to reach verdict totals, so its effect is not yet visible in the numbers, and it is too early to expect it in premium pricing. Insurers are pricing against the history, not against reforms that have not yet produced results.

ATRI's litigation research adds the structural picture. The number of tractor-trailer tort cases filed annually grew at an average of 3.7 percent from 2014 to 2023. Plaintiff attorneys have refined techniques such as the reptile theory, which frames a commercial carrier as a threat to public safety, and third-party litigation financing lowers the barrier to pursuing large cases.

None of this is in a fleet director's control. What is in their control is everything that happens before a claim reaches a courtroom: the documentation, technology, and safety programs that influence whether incidents occur, how they are defended, and how underwriters price the coverage in the first place.

Area 2: Your CSA Score Can Price You Out of Preferred Markets

Underwriters pull FMCSA Safety Measurement System data as a standard part of commercial trucking underwriting. A fleet with BASIC percentiles at or above intervention thresholds can be pushed out of preferred markets and into surplus lines, where rates are higher. Estimates of the premium effect vary widely. Fleet insurance specialists commonly cite increases of 15 to 30 percent, while Millennials Maintenance's compliance cost analysis, which covers this in far more depth, puts elevated CSA scores at 30 to 50 percent above baseline. The honest summary is that the effect is large, varies by underwriter and by BASIC, and is worth measuring for your own account rather than assuming.

For the full financial treatment, what poor compliance actually costs in insurance, freight access, and audit exposure is the more detailed source. What matters for a renewal is narrower. CSA scores can begin improving within a few months through targeted driver coaching and preventive maintenance compliance, although the full 24-month window takes time to roll off, and records that are wrong can be challenged. What to hand your broker before renewal covers how to audit your own record, including the DataQs process, before an underwriter reviews it.

One development raises the stakes on this area. Brokers now review the same CSA data before tendering freight, for reasons covered in why brokers are now scrutinizing carrier safety data more closely. A deteriorating score is increasingly a pricing problem and a freight access problem at the same time. What a strong safety reputation is worth across rates, drivers, and insurance puts dollar figures on how those pieces connect.

Area 3: You Are Not Getting Credit for the Technology You Already Have

This is the area where mid-size fleets leave the most money on the table. The telematics and dashcam systems most fleets already run for dispatch and ELD compliance are a negotiating asset with underwriters, and few carriers present them properly.

Carrier programs now put numbers on that value. GEICO's November 2025 partnership with Motive offers premium discounts of up to 10 percent for fleets that install Motive's driver safety products and share dashcam and ELD data. Progressive's SmartHaul program has offered discounts of 5 to 12 percent or more for fleets using approved telematics, and Sentry's arrangement with Motive offered up to 5 percent for data sharing. Insurance analytics firms report broader reductions of 15 to 30 percent for telematics-equipped fleets, though those figures come from vendors and brokers with an interest in the result, so treat them as upper-end claims rather than a promise. Cambridge Mobile Telematics research found a 38 percent reduction in accident frequency for fleets running active telematics programs, and a 40 percent reduction in average claim cost where video evidence was available.

The evidentiary value of dashcam footage in litigation is also documented. One case study published by Verizon Connect describes B.A.M. Trucking using footage to defeat three separate lawsuits from a single claimant, which reduced that fleet's annual premium by $200,000. Industry reporting citing AAA studies says fleets with dashcams are 40 percent more likely to have claims settled in their favor and 35 percent faster.

The problem for most mid-size fleets is not the hardware. It is that the data from that hardware never reaches the insurance conversation. Many fleets install telematics for dispatch and compliance and then leave the safety behavior data sitting in the platform, and their broker may not know what it contains. That is a presentation gap, not a capital gap. How telematics integration reduces insurance costs covers how leading fleets connect these systems to their financial outcomes.

Area 4: Your Renewal Process Is Working Against You

How and when you approach renewal affects the premium you are offered. Trucking insurance specialists consistently report that submissions arriving 90 to 120 days before renewal draw three to five competitive quotes, while submissions arriving 15 to 30 days out draw one or two inflated quotes with no negotiating leverage. Rate filings also update quarterly, and with premiums running 6.4 percent higher in the first quarter of 2026 than the 2025 average, waiting carries a cost of its own.

The broker matters as much as the timing. A generalist who handles many industries may not know which markets have appetite for your operation or how to present a CSA trend. A broker who understands DOT regulations, FMCSA data, loss runs, and fleet operations presents the same account differently, and the premium reflects it.

Coverage structure is the third piece. Fleets often carry structures that made sense when they were smaller and have not been reviewed since. Declared operating radius is the clearest example: underwriters use it to set liability tiers, and fleets running shorter hauls than their filed radius indicates pay for exposure they are not generating. Specialists report premium reductions of 15 percent or more from correcting it, which requires nothing beyond an accurate filing.

What goes into the submission is its own subject. Why renewal timing and broker selection matter leads into the full packet: the pre-submission audit, the documents, and the one-page narrative that determines how an underwriter reads everything else.

A Newer Pressure: What Brokers Now Expect From Your Policy

The four areas above are about overpaying for the coverage you have. A different pressure emerged in May, and it concerns whether the coverage you have is the coverage your freight customers will accept.

On May 14, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that freight brokers can be sued in state court for negligently selecting an unsafe carrier. The ruling itself is covered in the H2 2026 market outlook. It creates liability for brokers, not for carriers, and law-firm commentary is consistent that it does not directly change a carrier's own exposure. What it changes is where risk moves: through the contract between broker and carrier, and through the insurance policy behind that contract. Four effects are worth understanding now.

Indemnification language is expected to tighten. Several law firms advising on the ruling expect brokers to strengthen indemnity and hold-harmless clauses in broker-carrier agreements, including for negligent hiring claims arising from a crash. For a carrier, that creates a coverage question that did not matter much before: whether your policy responds when a broker makes an indemnification demand under your carrier agreement. Ask your agent in writing, and get the answer before a claim, when it costs nothing, rather than after, when it is decided in litigation. This is general information rather than legal advice, and contract language is worth having counsel review.

Additional insured and waiver requests are likely to become more common. Law-firm guidance to brokers recommends securing additional insured status and waiver-of-subrogation terms from the carriers they select. If those requests start arriving from your broker customers, knowing in advance how your insurer handles the endorsements and what they cost keeps it from becoming a scramble at tender time.

Required limits are expected to rise, though the evidence so far is early. The federal minimum for general freight is $750,000, and most brokers already require $1,000,000, according to Truck Writers' analysis. Saxton & Stump expects brokers to push for higher carrier limits sitting ahead of the broker's own contingent coverage, and one small-fleet insurance agency reports $2,000,000 requirements appearing on higher-exposure lanes. Treat that last point as an early signal from a single source rather than an established market standard. The logic behind it is straightforward, though. One broker-side analysis points out that an indemnity from a carrier carrying only minimum limits is a promise with very little behind it, which gives brokers a reason to care about what coverage actually sits behind the contract.

Your certificate of insurance may understate what you carry. Saxton & Stump notes that standard practice is for certificates to reflect the government-required limit rather than the policy's actual limits. A carrier with higher limits whose certificate shows the minimum can look under-insured to a broker running a more careful review. Having your agent issue certificates that reflect your actual limits costs nothing.

One related development on the underwriting side: Alliant reports that insurers are raising premiums on brokers' contingent coverage and adding carrier-vetting questions to those applications. Expect your broker customers to ask more about your safety program, driver qualification practices, and CSA performance. The documentation is largely the same material described in what a carrier capabilities packet should contain, and it overlaps heavily with the renewal packet above, so maintaining one current set serves all three audiences.

What is not yet established is published data showing Montgomery moving carriers' own premiums. Alliant and others expect safety performance to affect insurability more as underwriters reassess carrier risk, but that is a forecast. The effects observable so far are contractual and documentary. A practical step is to ask your broker to quote a $1,000,000 excess layer on your current program now, so the number is known before a customer requires it.

Putting the Four Areas Together: What the Number Looks Like

Take a mid-size fleet of 40 trucks paying $600,000 a year, which works out to an illustrative $15,000 per truck. That sits above ATRI's industry average of about $9,100 per truck, which is $0.106 per mile across 85,991 average annual miles, because the average includes large carriers and small and mid-size fleets pay more per mile than the largest ones. A given fleet's actual number will fall somewhere between the two depending on lanes, equipment, and loss history.

Applying the ranges above conservatively, moving CSA scores from above to below intervention thresholds could be worth 15 to 20 percent, or $90,000 to $120,000. Presenting telematics data and capturing carrier program credits could be worth 5 to 15 percent, or $30,000 to $90,000. Early preparation and a trucking-specialist broker could be worth 8 to 15 percent, and correcting coverage structure such as declared radius another 10 to 15 percent.

Those ranges overlap and do not add cleanly, and most come from brokers and specialists rather than controlled studies, so treat the result as directional. A fleet that works through all four areas over two renewal cycles can reasonably aim for a premium 20 to 30 percent below a fleet doing none of them. On a $600,000 premium, that is $120,000 to $180,000 a year, or $600,000 to $900,000 over five years.

Where Insurance Sits in Your Cost Structure

Insurance is about 4.5 percent of the average carrier's cost per mile, but it is among the fastest-rising lines. Your fleet's cost per mile is the way to see it against your rates. At ATRI's average mileage, $0.106 per mile is about $9,100 per truck per year, and a 6.4 percent increase is roughly $580 per truck, or about $23,000 across a 40-truck fleet.

The relationship also runs in the other direction. The telematics program that captures idle time and harsh braking for controlling other major fleet cost categories is the same program that generates the safety data an insurer needs to price you below the actuarial baseline. These are not separate investments. They are one investment producing returns in several cost categories at once.

For fleet directors approaching a renewal in the next 12 months, the practical starting point is a gap analysis 90 to 120 days before the renewal date. Where does your CSA score sit relative to intervention thresholds? What safety data does your telematics platform generate, and is it being shared with your insurer? When did you last review your operating radius and coverage structure? Does your broker have trucking-specific expertise? And since May: what do your broker agreements require of your policy, and does your certificate of insurance show your actual limits?

If you want to explore truck insurance quotes for your fleet size and operation type, having clear answers to those questions before the conversation starts will directly affect the number you receive.

Sources

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Millennials Trucking helps mid-size and enterprise fleet operations manage insurance, fuel, maintenance, and equipment costs from one place. Reach out to discuss your fleet's situation.