Not a pickup, not a semi, and priced by carriers who understand that.

Commercial auto

Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.

Without it — Operating under your own authority means the same federal filing as a tractor-trailer, whatever the truck looks like.

Motor truck cargo

The freight itself while you are hauling it. Separate from the liability on the truck.

Without it — Brokers routinely require $100,000 of cargo before they will tender a load, regardless of your equipment.

Auto physical damage

Damage to your own tractor and trailer. Primary liability pays for what you do to everyone else and nothing for your equipment, so without this a rollover you caused leaves you paying off a truck you can no longer run.

Without it — The truck and the gooseneck are financed and liability pays nothing toward either.

Non-trucking liability

Covers the tractor when it is being driven outside dispatch, home from the yard or to the shop. The motor carrier’s primary liability generally responds only while you are under dispatch, and that gap is exactly when an owner-operator is driving on their own time.

Without it — Primary liability stops off dispatch, which is most of the driving a hot shot operator does between loads.

General liability

Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.

Without it — Loading sites, yards and customer premises are outside the auto policy.

Umbrella & excess liability

Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.

Without it — Severity does not scale down with the truck: a highway accident is a highway accident.

Hired & non-owned auto

Covers vehicles the business does not own but its people drive on the job: rentals, and employees running errands in their own cars. Their personal auto policy will not cover a business trip, and the claim lands on the business. Pricing depends entirely on HOW it is bought: as an endorsement on a general liability policy we write, HNOA often costs a few hundred dollars; as a stand-alone (monoline) policy it runs $2,500 to $5,000, and association practitioner programs (CPH, CM&F and similar) generally cannot take the endorsement, so "add HNOA to my existing policy for $300-$800" is usually not a real option. A package carrying GL, professional liability and HNOA together is typically cheaper than the monoline.

Without it — Hot shot operators routinely use a personal pickup for errands between loads, which is exactly the gap this closes.

Do I need a CDL and full authority for hot shot?

They are two separate questions and operators conflate them constantly. Whether you need a CDL turns on the weight rating of the combination, and many hot shot setups sit under the threshold. Whether you need operating authority and the federal filing turns on hauling regulated freight for hire in interstate commerce, and that applies whatever you are driving. Plenty of hot shot operators need the authority and not the CDL.

Why do so many carriers decline hot shot?

Because it does not fit their rating. The equipment looks like light truck and the exposure is commercial trucking: long distances, tight delivery windows, and drivers who are often new to their own authority. Carriers that have not built for the class either decline it or price it as though it were a tractor-trailer. Placing it means going to markets that rate it as what it is.

Which carriers actually write hot shot?

Fewer than write general freight, and it is worth knowing them by name rather than collecting declinations. Cover Whale writes hot shot across Class 2 through Class 8. Progressive writes it including Class 2. GEICO, Berkshire Hathaway Homestate and Nirvana all write it. Canal writes hot shot but wants two years in operation and prior insurance of your own first, and Great American will look at hot shot auto haulers only where the freight is exclusively automobiles. On the other side, several established trucking insurers exclude the class outright — IAT Specialty, which writes on the Occidental Fire & Casualty and Wilshire paper, and Berkley Prime among them — so a decline from a carrier that does not write the class tells you nothing about your risk.

Cover Whale, who write hot shot and new authority together

I have a brand new authority AND a hot shot. Can that be placed?

Yes, and it is the hardest combination in small trucking, so it is worth being precise. Most markets that tolerate new authority carve hot shot out of it, and most markets that write hot shot want two years before they will look. Canal is exactly that case, writing new ventures generally and still requiring two years for hot shot specifically. The markets that take both together are a short list: Cover Whale, Progressive, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Homestate. Nirvana and Canal write hot shot but want two years first, so they are a renewal conversation rather than a year-one one. Being told no four times does not mean the risk is unplaceable; it usually means the first four submissions went to markets that were never going to write it.

New authority: what the market actually looks like in year one

Is hot shot cheaper to insure than a tractor-trailer?

Less than operators expect, and sometimes not at all. The premium follows the exposure rather than the size of the truck, and a hot shot runs the same highways, the same hours and the same delivery pressure as a semi, while a serious accident produces the same liability, because severity does not scale with your gross weight. Where hot shot does save money is on physical damage, since the equipment is worth a fraction of a tractor and a trailer. Anyone quoting hot shot as though it were a pickup has misunderstood the risk, and that quote will not survive the first loss review.

What cargo limit will brokers ask for?

One hundred thousand dollars is the common floor and is asked for almost universally, with higher limits on machinery and equipment loads. It is worth carrying what the freight you want actually requires rather than the minimum, because the loads you get offered are filtered on it.

Is it hotshot or hot shot?

Both, and the insurance is the same either way. Hotshot trucking means hauling smaller, time-sensitive loads for hire on a medium duty pickup and a gooseneck or flatbed trailer. Whichever way you spell it, once the truck and trailer together are rated at 10,001 pounds or more the rig is a commercial motor vehicle under federal rules, and hauling for hire across state lines means operating authority and the federal insurance filing, plus the cargo limit brokers ask for and physical damage on anything financed.

What does a hot shot trucking insurance application ask for?

The applications for hot shot trucking businesses ask about 4 things above all: what type of business structure do you have (individual, corporation, partnership, or other); what commodities do you haul; do your vehicles have gps, cameras, or other tracking systems installed; what claims or losses have you had in the last three years. Have your loss runs from your current insurance company for the last three years (showing any claims) and your driver list with each driver's name, date of birth, driver's license number, cdl expiration date, years holding a cdl, and any accidents or violations from the last three years ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.