In this solo presentation, Hunter Nelson of Nelson Insurance Agency explains why cyber insurance is a vital, yet often overlooked, coverage for trucking companies, especially as they grow. He outlines how increased fleet size raises exposure to cyber risks such as ransomware, false‑invoice scams, and double‑brokering schemes, and cites a statistic that 68% of small businesses close after a cyberattack. Nelson describes the financial fallout of attacks—losses ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, regulatory penalties, and operational shutdowns when electronic logging devices (ELDs) or dispatch systems are locked out. He argues that cyber insurance is relatively inexpensive compared to auto liability or cargo coverage and can cover data recovery, fines, and business interruption up to $1 million. Nelson also stresses basic cybersecurity hygiene—multi‑factor authentication, an IT team, and factoring—to mitigate risk. He concludes with a call to action for fleet owners to explore cyber insurance and contact his agency for assistance.
Chapters
Hey guys, I'm Hunter with Nelson Insurance. Lately I've been going over, uh, all these insurance coverages explained on the YouTube channel. Today we're going to talk about cyber insurance. This is one that's heavily forgotten about. Almost nobody has. This is really going to be more tailored towards the fleet side of things, but, uh, it's a very important coverage. I'm going to kind of explain why here. So we are based out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Again, I'm Hunter with Nelson Insurance Agency. So let's get into it. So as you guys grow, the more trucks you have, the more risk you have, the more insurance coverages you guys need. When you guys have one truck, two trucks, it doesn't really matter if you have EPLI. You don't need shop insurance or property insurance. You don't need work comp, OCAAC, or occupational accident, any other type of stuff really until you start growing, right? There'll be areas like once you have one driver, you could start needing that coverage, but cyber insurance was one of them. Whereas you guys, you guys really do probably need it, or it's heavily recommended right when you guys get started. But as you guys grow, it gets to be a bigger and bigger issue, and you guys are more prone to risk here. So cyber insurance comes into play a lot with trucking because even though you guys are not heavily involving technology like, you know, schools, hospitals, or any of that type of stuff might be as much, um, or obviously IT teams, anything along those lines, You guys have a huge risk of technology. Is not a there's not maybe a ton of it in the trucking space, but the technology you guys do use if you guys go without it, you practically can't run the business. And on top of that too, trucking has so much revenue and so much money in and out where if you guys have a ransomware attack, anything along those lines, you guys could be out 100 grand in a week, out 500 grand in a week, 50 grand in a week, whatever the case is. Where it's like, if you don't have that money sitting aside, it's, uh, it's a huge deal. It's why factoring exists. If you guys don't have that money right away, but you still have expenses, you guys need factoring. Or you guys need cyber insurance. You guys will get attacked at some point. Um, 68% of businesses, small businesses, go out of business once they have a cyber attack because they don't have cyber insurance. They don't have the money set aside. They don't have a security team, IT team, whatever the case is. And what does this stuff look like? Well, you got ransomware attacks where they go lock you out of the system. You can't see the trucks. No ELDs can be used. Uh, you guys are gonna get in trouble with the DOT, the FMCSA, and there's not a whole lot you guys can do without the— without that, without, um, any other dispatching systems, anything on those lines. You guys could completely lose, uh, sight of those trucks. And so without that, they'll say, hey, I want a million dollars wired to me, otherwise I'm gonna just go completely delete everything you have and you guys will not get your technology back. They could delete information where you guys, just like us as an insurance agency, we're required to keep information for so many years. If we do not have it, we can be disciplined with regulatory violations, anything, fines, anything on those lines. Same thing applies to you guys. False invoices are huge in contractors, are huge in trucking. You guys get a false invoice I've heard a story about somebody who had an $800,000 a year insurance policy. They sat in their email for 6 months and the trucking company was completely unaware of them. There was some notifications about their trucking insurance renewal coming up with the date. And sure enough, the scammer sent a renewal payment, I want to say 2 weeks out from renewal. The trucking company paid it without thinking about it. Their email looked almost identical to the insurance agent or the insurance company. They were out $800 grand. Their insurance canceled, and there's not much you can really do without that about that without cyber insurance. Cyber insurance comes into play on false invoices, on double brokering, cyber crimes. You know, there's there's just one story a couple months ago where Guy Fieri had like $12 million in uh. I want to say it was tequila stolen by double brokering, and actually ended up being a cybercrime that cyber insurance could have possibly covered. In that scenario, that would have been a huge— that would have been a huge deal. So there's a couple examples where cyber insurance comes into play. Cyber insurance is very, very inexpensive compared to your auto liability, your physical damage. It's gonna be cheaper than your cargo. It's almost like a general liability policy. A lot of you guys pay a couple thousand dollars for your general liability if you got multiple trucks. Same thing kind of goes for cyber and it keeps you guys in business. It's not very talked about. It's kind of hidden because they have been for the past 10 years. So there's been so few claims. But the thing is that when a claim comes up, a ransomware attack comes up, anything happens, most guys go out of business. Like I said, 68% of small businesses go out of business After their first cyberattack. And so it's huge and huge and huge to have this stuff. Cyber insurance will pay for— well, some of them can pay for the lost data, for the fines, to get IT team back out there and get you guys back up and running. Not just pay for the, oh, you lost $400 grand because you've been sitting for a week. We're just going to keep that happening and we'll pay you out up to $1 million, right? They will actually fight to get you back online. And on top of that, if you guys don't want cyber insurance, whatever, you guys do need to take precautions. Have multi-factor authentication on all your stuff. I have an IT team. It's not cheap, but it's super worth it. I have cyber insurance. I have an IT team because I have everybody's payment information. If something were to happen, I get locked in my systems, my clients' payment information were to get leaked through an attack or something along those lines, it's a big deal and I could get put out of business. So highly recommend this stuff. Go look at cyber insurance. Feel free to reach out with any questions. We're happy to help. Again, I'm Hunter with Nelson Insurance Agency. All my contact info is in the bio. Appreciate you guys watching.
