Motor carrier insurance rates

[Wes J]

I'm curious what folks are paying for class 8 truck insurance.

I bought a tandem rollback. Trying to get it on the road, but the insurance is more than I expected.

I'm the only driver. Never had an accident. Had a CDL for 15 years. 200 mile radius. No permit loads. Maybe 15,000 miles a year.

Prices quotes range from $9,000 to $15,000 per year for liability and cargo insurance. I was expecting it to be about half that.

I've been trying to get insurance for 8 weeks. My agency can't even get most carriers to quote it. The 3 quotes I did get seem crazy for my anticipated miles.

What are other paying?

 

[Junkyard]

How long have you had your authority? It’s been a few years since I had my hand in the game like that. One of the bigger companies doing it now is Progressive. For the entire time I was trucking I used Great West. They did it all under one deductible. The were so good I didn’t shop rates for 12–13 years. I can send you a number for the agent I used, he can probably help sort through the crap. Maybe even hook you up. All they do is trucking.

 

[Junkyard]

Oh and BTW, those rates sound right for an interstate carrier. Intrastate should be less....not sure why the quotes are that high. I’d expect something in the $6,000 per year range.

 

[Vetech63]

UGH...…...insurance. Any kind of insurance I get now days just pisses me off. They do not want to accept ANY risk.

 

[Wes J]

It's a new authority. I've had business insurance for 6 years, but not commercial vehicle.

Never had an insurance claim for anything, ever. But everyone is afraid of me. I can't even get the lazy agents to call me back.

Meanwhile my brother insures a dump truck as a private carrier for $300/year.

 

[Junkyard]

That’s the deal. New for hire authority to them is like being 16 with a Z28 Camaro and raging hormones!!! It shouldn’t be that way but with all the questionable people getting authority and operating a trucking company it’s made things a little more difficult for sane people to do business.

 

[Crummy]

I've heard from friends that are still in the business that right now a new authority with no commercial loss runs available for the previous 3 years can be north of $24k/yr if you can even get someone to quote it. If I remember correctly my 2016-17 policy was around $5,400/yr $1m liability & $1,100/yr $250k cargo with no comp coverage on the truck/trailer.

 

[Wes J]

Wow. $2k/month for insurance really puts a dent in any kind of profit. How does anyone pull that off?

I'm already paying $4k/year for garage insurance.

 

[RTSmith]

Just renewed the business' insurance, and agent was saying auto type claims (including large trucks) were through the roof. Many won't even quote policies right now, others just jacking the rates trying to cover the claims costs. Blame it on the lawyer's ads about big truck crashes.

 

[Wes J]

I imagine it's all due to higher truck traffic. Just look at any job posting site. There's more jobs for OTR truck drivers than any other category.

Can't build pipelines, so we haul oil in trucks.

Everyone's buying Chinese junk on Amazon and shipping it to their houses. Mostly on trucks. I did some work for UPS in Louisville last year. They were starting people at $32/hr and hiring anyone they could get.

I wonder if the retards in charge will take a look at our antiquated truck weight limits. I remember a push to go to 97,000 lbs on 6 axles back before the recession. Let us all run 120,000 on super Bs or 160,000 on 11 axles like Michigan. That would surely cut down the truck traffic.