Home every night, inside 150 air miles, and possibly exempt from logging.
We insure local and short-haul carriers: high-frequency urban work, the short-haul exemption, and the intrastate filings that replace the federal ones.
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.
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.
What local trucking businesses actually need.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Frequent stops in congested areas is a high-frequency exposure, and it is rated very differently from highway miles.
Motor truck cargo
The freight itself while you are hauling it. Separate from the liability on the truck.
Without it — Local freight is still owed to whoever shipped it.
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 — Low-speed damage is constant in tight yards, docks and city streets.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — Loading, delivery premises and customer sites sit outside the auto policy.
Workers compensation
Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.
Without it — Repeated loading and unloading is where local drivers get hurt, not the driving.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — Municipal and commercial delivery contracts frequently require limits above primary.
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 — Off-dispatch driving is excluded by primary liability at any radius.
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)
What the insurance company will ask about your local trucking business
We read the applications the markets use for businesses in this field and pulled out what they actually ask. Have these answers ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week, because nobody has to come back to you for the missing piece.
About the business
- What is your business structure (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or LLC)?
- Do you have any sister or subsidiary companies, and do you share equipment with them?
- Have you had any changes in ownership, management, or business name in the past five years?
How you operate
- What types of freight do you haul, and what percentage of your business is each type (refrigerated, dry van, auto hauling, tanker, flatbed, other)?
- How many company drivers, owner-operators, and subcontractors do you have?
- Do you operate double or triple trailers, and if so, what percentage of your mileage?
- Do you slip-seat your vehicles, and if so, what percentage?
- Do you have team drivers, and if so, how many?
Safety and controls
- Do you have a safety manager, and if so, is it full-time or part-time?
- Do any of your vehicles have advanced technology like electronic logging devices or collision avoidance systems, and what percentage of your fleet has them?
Money and people
- How many revenue units (tractors and straight trucks) do you operate?
- What is your gross annual revenue and total annual mileage for the past four years?
- If you hire non-owned vehicles, how many employees use them?
- If you hire vehicles, what is your annual estimated cost?
- Do you operate from a residence, and if so, do you have on-premises fuel storage?
Your history
- What coverage types do you need (auto liability, physical damage, cargo, general liability)?
- What liability limits, deductibles, and coverage options do you prefer?
- Do you need excess or umbrella coverage above standard limits?
Have these ready
- Count of each vehicle type you operate (tractors, straight trucks, trailers by type)
- Your gross revenue and miles for the current year and past four years
- Your last three years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs
- Current policy documents if you want limits higher than $150,000
- Copy of your homeowner's policy if you operate from a residence
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our local trucking clients ask us.
Am I exempt from ELDs if I stay local?
Possibly, and it is worth knowing precisely. The short-haul exemption applies to drivers operating entirely within a 150 air-mile radius of their normal reporting location who are released from duty within 14 hours and who start and end the day at the same place. Qualifying drivers do not have to keep a record of duty status or run an electronic logging device, but they do have to keep accurate time records proving they qualified. Exceeding the 14-hour window even by minutes voids it for that day.
Do I need federal authority for local work?
Only if you are crossing state lines or hauling interstate freight. Purely intrastate carriers are regulated by the state, and the credential, the form the insurer files and the minimum limit are all set locally rather than federally, and they differ meaningfully from one state to the next. Getting this right is the difference between an authority that can book loads and one that cannot.
Why is my local premium not much cheaper than long haul?
Because radius reduces severity and local work increases frequency. Fewer highway miles means fewer catastrophic accidents, but constant stops, reversing, tight docks and urban traffic produce far more claims. The two effects partly cancel, which surprises operators who assumed staying close to home would halve the price.
Does it matter that my drivers go home every night?
It helps, and underwriters know it. Drivers home nightly are easier to retain, and driver turnover is one of the strongest predictors of loss in this class. A stable driver roster on a local operation is worth presenting rather than assuming nobody notices.
What does a local trucking insurance application ask for?
The applications for local trucking businesses ask about 4 things above all: what is your business structure (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or llc); what types of freight do you haul, and what percentage of your business is each type (refrigerated, dry van, auto hauling, tanker, flatbed, other); do you have a safety manager, and if so, is it full-time or part-time; how many revenue units (tractors and straight trucks) do you operate. Have count of each vehicle type you operate (tractors, straight trucks, trailers by type) and your gross revenue and miles for the current year and past four years ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.
Handed a lease, a vendor packet or a client contract with insurance requirements? Paste it into the COI Requirements Decoder to see what each one means for your business, or read what the requirements mean.