A top trucking program, strict on the way in and slow on the way out.

Trucking is the only business

Great West was founded in 1956, has been an Old Republic company since 1985, and by its own account insures more than 60,000 trucking companies in 46 states, from one truck to 1,000. The products are the trucking set in full, with auto liability, physical damage, cargo, general liability, workers compensation, excess limits and owner-operator coverage, plus specialty forms for bulk commodity carriers, freight brokers and freight forwarders.

Without it — A carrier that has written nothing but trucks for seventy years reads your loss run against a very large sample of trucks.

Sold through appointed agencies only

Great West says it partners with more than 200 independent agencies that specialize in truck insurance. There is no direct online purchase, and a quote reaches you through an agency that holds the appointment.

Without it — Ask any agency whether it holds a Great West appointment before assuming your submission is going there.

Strict underwriting, in our experience

Nothing on their site publishes a minimum fleet, a tenure rule or an excluded class, and we will not state one for them. What we can say from placing trucking accounts is that the underwriting is thorough. The whole submission gets read, driver records and loss runs included, and a file with a gap in it is returned rather than priced around.

Without it — A thin file that would get a quote elsewhere gets a decline here, and the decline says nothing about the fleet.

The safety and claims side

Insureds get a risk control department with on-site safety training, a quarterly Safety Talk newsletter, the Value-Driven Driving video series, a Learning Library of online safety videos, annual risk control summits and safety awards. Claims are reported around the clock, physical damage and cargo claims are handled by in-house adjusters, and on a serious accident the company says it uses its own aircraft to get an investigator to the scene.

Without it — For a fleet that is going to run a safety program anyway, the carrier supplying the material is part of the price.

Is Great West one of the best trucking insurance companies?

In our experience it is regarded as one of the top trucking programs in the country, and the numbers on its own site are consistent with that. A+ from AM Best, trucking and nothing else since 1956, 60,000 insured trucking companies. The trade is the underwriting, which is strict, and the exit, which is slower than you expect for the reason below. A fleet with clean records and complete paperwork should want to be considered here. A fleet that is not there yet is better served by a market with a published door for where it is.

Fleet coverage, and what a complete submission looks like

Will Great West write a new authority?

Their site does not publish a tenure requirement and we are not going to invent one. What we will say is that the underwriting is thorough enough that a first-year authority with no loss runs of its own is a hard submission anywhere that reads files this closely. The markets with a written new-venture program are where a first-year authority should be submitted first, with Great West on the list for the renewal after a clean year or two.

The markets that publish a new-authority program

I am moving carriers and my loss runs are taking weeks. Why?

Because in our experience Great West is the one trucking carrier that sends loss runs by postal mail rather than by fax or email. Whether that is policy or habit we cannot say, and the effect is the same either way. A carrier that wants to quote you needs those loss runs first, and the paper arrives on the mail’s schedule rather than the renewal’s. So request them in writing the day you decide to shop, naming every policy number and every year you want, and allow weeks rather than days. When they arrive, scan them and keep the copies, because the next move should not depend on the mail again. The history is yours, and most states require an insurer to furnish loss information to its own policyholder on request, so a request that is ignored can be escalated in writing.

How to get your loss runs, and what to do when they stall

Is this the same company as the Great-West life insurance business?

No. Several unrelated companies carry Great-West in their names in life insurance and retirement. The trucking insurer is Great West Casualty Company of South Sioux City, Nebraska, an Old Republic company, and its old web address, gwccnet.com, now redirects to orgreatwest.com. If the name is on a truck policy or a certificate, it is this one.

What does Great West need from me to quote?

The same things every trucking carrier asks for, with less tolerance for any of them missing. Three to five years of loss runs, a driver list with dates of birth and hire dates, motor vehicle records for every driver, a unit schedule with values, your radius and commodities, and your safety scores as they stand today rather than as you remember them. We put that together with you before anything is submitted, because a submission returned for a gap costs weeks and the gap was usually one page.

Long-haul trucking coverage, and the submission that gets it priced

Why go through a broker instead of buying direct?

Because it does not cost you anything, which is the part that surprises people. Broker compensation is built into the carrier’s rate whether you use one or not: buying direct does not remove the cost, it removes the person being paid to be on your side of it.

The other five reasons, and what it costs you