What does it mean if I am quoted with National Indemnity?
Usually that the preferred markets have been exhausted. National Indemnity writes commercial trucking risks standard carriers decline, so a quote from them is often the answer to a submission nobody else would take -- and a signal about how your account is being read rather than a judgment on you.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
Lori Adams, TRS
Commercial Trucking Insurance Advisor
Twenty-five years in trucking insurance. Knows the filings, the radius rules and the carriers that will actually take the risk.
Transportation Risk Specialist (TRS)
Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.
Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.
The detail
National Indemnity Company is a commercial insurer writing hard-to-place transportation risks and is a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary.
What this means for you
- Being here is not permanent. Most accounts land in a market of last resort for a specific, dateable reason -- a loss, a lapse, a cancellation, new authority -- and reasons age out.
- Find out WHY before accepting it. A submission reaches this market either because the risk genuinely is hard or because it was presented badly, and those need completely different responses.
- A lapse in coverage is one of the fastest routes here and the most avoidable. Never let a policy cancel while you argue about it; the gap costs more than the argument.
- Plan the route back. Twelve clean months, a documented driver standard, telematics and a tidy FMCSA record are what move an account toward the preferred markets, and somebody has to actually re-market it when the time comes.
- Compare terms, not just price. Markets of this kind sometimes attach narrower wording, and a cheaper policy with an exclusion that matters is not cheaper.
Related questions
- Is National Indemnity a bad carrier?
No, and it is worth saying plainly. They are a long-established insurer writing risks the standard market will not, which is a necessary function -- without markets like this, an operator with one bad year would simply be unable to run. What matters is whether you belong there and whether anyone has a plan for getting you out.
- Why did my broker only get me one quote?
Sometimes because it genuinely is the only market available, and sometimes because the submission was not built well enough for anyone else to look at. Those are hard to tell apart from the outside, which is why it is fair to ask which markets were approached and what each of them said.
- How do I get back to a standard market?
Time and evidence, in that order. A clean twelve months is the main thing; after that it is the file -- driver records, an inspection history that matches the policy, an FMCSA profile that agrees with both, and a loss run somebody has actually read. Accounts stay in the hard market longer than they need to mostly because nobody re-markets them.
Need this handled?
Reading about it and having it handled are different jobs, and the second one is ours. We place the accounts other brokers decline — claims history, a cancellation, an unusual operation, a business nobody wants to underwrite twice — and we will tell you when the policy you already have is the right one. Tell us the situation and a licensed human replies the same business day.
Written by the licensed brokers at Boring Insurance. Last updated 2026-08-18. See all guides.