Not a pickup, not a semi, and priced by carriers who understand that.
Commercial insurance for hot shot operators running Class 3 to 5 trucks and goosenecks — full authority requirements on equipment many carriers will not rate.
Tell us the situation.
A licensed human replies the same business day — not an auto-responder, and not five producers calling at once. We shop it across our carriers and tell you if the policy you already have is the right one.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
What hot shot trucking businesses actually need.
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 — 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.
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)
“He has all of our trucks for Wheelzdown…a Hotshot trucking Co. out of Wisconsin… proving that even across the country, they can offer exceptional customer service, and he does! The best rates around and great customer service, what more can someone ask for?”
What hot shot trucking operators ask us.
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.
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.