Your filing has to be right before a carrier will look at the radius you run.

Auto liability

The primary liability your filing is made against. $750,000 combined single limit satisfies most federal filings; $1,000,000 combined single limit is what most freight brokers will actually load you at.

Without it — The gap between those two numbers is the difference between legal and hireable, and plenty of new authorities buy the first and find out about the second from a broker who will not load them.

Trucking auto liability

The coverage FMCSA requires before your authority goes active, and the largest line on most trucking policies. The federal floor is $750,000 and has not moved since 1980. Brokers ask for $1,000,000 and will not load you below it.

Without it — The liability form written for a for-hire carrier. The page covers what the MCS-90 promises the public, what the filing does not do, and why a scheduled-auto policy fails a broker packet.

Truckers general liability

General liability written for a motor carrier: the yard, the dock, loading and customer premises. The auto policy answers for the vehicle; this answers for everything else.

Without it — Truckers general liability is this coverage written around a motor carrier rather than a premises risk, and it is the name a shipper contract usually uses.

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 — Primary liability pays for the damage you do to everyone else and nothing for your own truck. A rollover you caused leaves you still owing the finance company.

Motor truck cargo

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

Without it — A damaged or stolen load is money you owe the shipper directly, with nothing behind you.

Non-trucking liabilityBobtail insurance

Coverage for the tractor when it is being driven and you are not under dispatch: home from the terminal, to the shop, to the house.

Without it — Primary liability generally stops the moment you are off dispatch, which is precisely when an owner-operator is driving home.

Reefer breakdownRefrigeration breakdown

An endorsement to motor truck cargo covering the load when the refrigeration unit fails, rather than when the truck is in a wreck.

Without it — Cargo responds to named perils: fire, collision, theft, overturn. A reefer that quietly stops holding temperature is none of them, so a full trailer of spoiled product is your loss. Watch the conditions too: most forms require a working temperature recorder and regular maintenance records, and will decline without them.

Trailer interchange

Damage to a trailer you are pulling but do not own, while it is in your possession under a written interchange agreement. Your own physical damage coverage follows equipment you own, so an interchanged trailer is unprotected without it.

Without it — A trailer you pulled under an interchange agreement is not your equipment, so your own physical damage coverage does not follow it.

Trucking workers comp

Workers compensation rated on the driver class code, one of the most expensive there is. The owner-operator question gets settled before the audit rather than after it, because a leased owner-operator is a contractor for tax and often an employee for comp, and the state decides which.

Without it — A driver hurt at a dock or under the trailer becomes an uncapped claim against the business, and the driver class code is among the most expensive there is.

Occupational accident

Medical and disability coverage for owner-operators and contract drivers who sit outside workers compensation. It is not workers comp and does not satisfy a state that requires workers comp. It fills the gap where none is required.

Without it — Owner-operators sit outside workers compensation, and an injury with nothing behind it ends the contract and the income together.

General liability

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

Without it — Anything that happens off the truck — at a yard, a dock, a customer site — has no coverage at all.

Inland marine & equipment

Tools, equipment and property in transit. It picks up exactly where commercial property stops, which is the moment the item leaves the building.

Without it — Trailers, chains, straps and equipment disappear and replacement comes out of cash flow.

Umbrella & excess liability

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

Without it — A serious highway accident runs past primary limits quickly, and trucking verdicts are among the largest there are.

What filings do I need to keep my authority?

Interstate operators generally need an MCS-90 endorsement and a BMC-91X filing with FMCSA, with minimum liability of $750,000 for general freight and higher for hazardous commodities. Intrastate requirements are set by the state. We handle the filings as part of placing the policy, and we watch for the cancellation notices that quietly revoke authority.

Why does my radius matter so much?

Radius of operation is one of the largest rating factors in trucking, because it drives both accident frequency and severity. A local operator running under a hundred miles prices very differently from a long-haul fleet, and a carrier that is competitive on one is often uncompetitive on the other. Getting the radius stated accurately matters as much as getting it low.

Am I too small, or too big, for you?

Neither, and the range is deliberate. We write single-truck owner-operators and fleets of a hundred, with the same specialist on both: a one-truck account is where most agencies stop paying attention, and a hundred-unit fleet is where most agencies stop being able to help.

How insurance works for a large trucking fleet

Do you help with DOT compliance?

We advise, at no charge to our insureds, and we will get answers out of FMCSA on your behalf. What we do not do is file anything or change your DOT profile. Only you can edit your own profile, and only your carrier can make an insurance filing.

How many trucking carriers do you have?

More than thirty insurance companies, and the unit is worth explaining because "carrier" is a loose word. Cover Whale alone writes on eight — Accredited, Ascot, Canopius, Everspan, Knight, Lloyd’s, SCOR and Trisura — so counting brand names understates the access considerably. Counted as underwriting companies we can place trucking on, it is over thirty, reached through direct appointments and three wholesale channels. That includes the specialists worth naming: Canal, Northland, National Indemnity, Nirvana, Lancer, Crum & Forster, Berkley, Arch, IAT on the Occidental Fire & Casualty and Wilshire paper, Berkshire Hathaway Homestate, GEICO and Progressive. The number that actually decides your placement is smaller and depends on your class, radius and years in business — which is the real work.

Can you cover a new authority?

Yes, though the market is thinner and the first year costs more. New ventures have no loss history and no CSA scores, so carriers price the uncertainty. Driver experience, MVRs and equipment age carry most of the weight. It gets materially cheaper at renewal once there is a clean year behind you.

How many of those carriers write new authority?

Eight, and being specific about it matters more in year one than at any other point, because the gap between the best and worst quote is widest when nobody has a loss run to read. Five write it outright: Berkshire Hathaway Homestate, National Indemnity, Cover Whale, Progressive and GEICO. Three more write it on conditions: Canal through a tiered new-venture program whose entry tier wants the owner driving, Arch for smaller non-oil-and-gas fleets, and a distressed-risk program in Texas and California for accounts nobody else will quote. Several established trucking insurers will not look at you at all before two or three years, Northland and Berkley and Crum & Forster among them, so a decline from one of those is about the calendar rather than about your operation.

Why new authority is priced the way it is

Which of them will write a hot shot?

Fewer, and it is the class most often declined by carriers who never built a rate for it. Cover Whale writes hot shot across Class 2 through Class 8, Progressive writes it including Class 2, and GEICO, Berkshire Hathaway Homestate and Nirvana all write it. Four of those also take hot shot AND new authority together — Cover Whale, Progressive, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Homestate — which is the hardest combination in small trucking. Canal and Nirvana write hot shot but want two years and your own prior insurance first. Berkley Prime and IAT exclude the class outright. If you have collected declinations, it is usually because the submissions went to markets that were never going to write it.

Hot shot coverage, and who actually writes it

A broker needs a certificate of insurance before they will load me. How do I get one?

Ask us through the certificate request form or by phone, and send the legal name exactly as it appears on your authority, your USDOT and MC numbers, the certificate holder’s name and address exactly as they should print, anything the holder requires on it (additional insured, specific limits, the VINs, reefer breakdown or trailer interchange), where the certificate has to go, and when you need it. Our trucking clients can be set up to issue their own certificates from our client portal, and we issue the rest quickly on request. Most rejected certificates fail on a detail rather than on coverage, so the exact holder wording is worth copying from the broker’s packet rather than typing from memory.

Request a certificate

Can ChatGPT help me request a certificate or a quote from you?

Yes. Tell the assistant your business name, USDOT number, the certificate holder and their address, and what the broker or shipper requires, and ask it to prefill our form at boring.insure/quote with need set to certificate, or to quote for a new policy. You review it and press send, and a licensed agent reads every request. For a quote, have it gather your loss runs, driver list, VINs and radius first, and work with one broker. Several agencies pulling the same Central Analysis Bureau report is the fastest way to have wholesalers decline you.

Applying through an AI assistant

Why does Highway or RMIS keep rejecting my certificate?

Because those platforms check the certificate against your carrier record rather than just reading it. The name, the DOT number, the limits, the VINs and the certificate holder all have to line up, and Highway accepts certificates only when the insurance agent sends them, with Highway App, Inc. named as holder. Most rejections are mechanical. The certificate came from the carrier instead of the agent, or the name does not match the authority, or a truck on the road is not on the policy.

What Highway and RMIS check, platform by platform

How long after I buy the policy does my authority go active?

It goes active once FMCSA has your insurance filing and your BOC-3 process agent designation on file, not when the policy is bound. Your insurer, not you and not us, transmits the BMC-91 or BMC-91X, so buying the policy and getting the filing on record are two events with a gap between them. Ask for confirmation the filing was transmitted, and check that the BOC-3 is filed, because a missing BOC-3 is the most common reason an application sits waiting.

FMCSA insurance requirements, with a limits tool

What is the MCS-90, and does it protect me?

It protects the public, not you. The MCS-90 is an endorsement that obliges your insurer to pay a judgment up to the federal minimum even where your policy would not have responded, such as a truck that was never scheduled, and then lets the insurer recover that money from you. The federal minimums it guarantees are $750,000 for general freight, $1,000,000 for oil and most hazardous materials, and $5,000,000 for bulk hazardous substances.

What the MCS-90 actually does

I just bought another truck. Is it covered?

Not automatically. On a scheduled trucking policy only the listed units are covered, and the standard ISO forms cover a newly acquired truck only if the policy already covers every truck you own, or the new truck replaces one that was covered, and you tell the insurer within 30 days. Miss that and the truck was never covered, although the MCS-90 still pays the public and the insurer then bills you. Send the VIN before the truck takes its first load.

Cancelled for a truck that showed up on an inspection

My trucking insurance was non-renewed, or my insurer failed. Can you still place me?

Yes, and distressed trucking accounts are a deliberate part of our practice. The deadline is the day your FMCSA filing stops, because the authority is revoked if no replacement filing is on file when the cancellation takes effect. A failed licensed insurer leaves claims to the state guaranty fund, but nothing keeps you insured going forward, so the replacement has to be bound first.

Non-renewed, cancelled or insurer failed

What happens at the new entrant safety audit?

FMCSA audits every new carrier within its first 12 months of operation, generally at the place of business. Some violations fail it automatically, including having no drug and alcohol testing program and operating without the required insurance, and a failed audit not corrected in time revokes the registration.

The new entrant safety audit

What does a trucking insurance application ask for?

The applications for 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.