In this instructional video, Hunter Nelson of Hunter Nelson Insurance walks viewers through the entire process of shopping for trucking insurance, emphasizing how to avoid overpaying on fleet renewals. He explains when to start the shopping process based on fleet size and age, and why larger or newer fleets need to begin 60‑90 days before renewal to allow time for loss runs and underwriting. Nelson advocates using a knowledgeable trucking insurance agent rather than self‑service portals, detailing how to evaluate agents: they must understand trucking-specific class codes, cargo types, and have strong relationships with underwriters. He warns against contacting too many agents, noting that multiple submissions can alienate underwriters and reduce quote quality. The video outlines the exact information underwriters require for both non‑fleet (IFTA miles, loss runs, VINs, vehicle values, driver hire dates, CDL tenure, credit scores, ELDs, cargo specifics) and fleet submissions (financial statements, P&L, balance sheet, safety scores, hiring practices, workers’ comp exposure, facility insurance). Nelson stresses the importance of accurate, timely documentation to avoid missing out on better rates. He also describes the role of the agent after binding—providing ID cards, COIs, 24/7 support, and account management. Finally, he advises on renewal strategy: new businesses should shop annually, while established fleets can shop less frequently but should still periodically benchmark prices to maintain leverage. He invites viewers to contact his Sioux Falls‑based agency for personalized assistance.
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Hey guys, I'm Hunter Nelson Insurance. I'm going to go over how to shop for trucking insurance. Now, I mean, the concept of it sounds pretty obvious, but there's a lot of things a lot of people don't know. The nitty-gritty— when do I shop? Who do I shop with? What options do I have? What information do I need to have? And what are some things I don't know that are going to be costing me money when I am shopping? So the concept of it, I know everybody knows who— call an agent and go from there, right? But, uh, let's get into like when, when and how do you start preparing for shopping? So when you guys are looking at shopping your truck insurance, the bigger your fleet is, the earlier you need to start shopping. And the newer you are and the smaller you are, less time is really needed on it. If you are a new venture, call it new CDL, just started, you're gonna have like 3 insurance companies. Good to go get quotes. You can call an agent, they're gonna have the 3: Progressive, Geico, Berkshire. I suppose there is National Indemnity. Why? I suppose if you only got 6 months CDL, that's when Berkshire and National Demony will come in, but you can go get a quote that day, right? Now let's take it to like you guys got 5, 10 trucks along those lines. You're probably gonna want to start shopping around that 75, 60 days out is really when that process is when I would start shopping. Now the reason I say that is because sometimes loss runs can take weeks to get, even a month. So you want to make sure you guys have that. You can start shopping those markets, or the agent can start shopping those markets 60 days out. You want to make sure you got all the options. Some of those guys do take a while. You got some insurance companies like Progressive, give you a quote over the phone. Some of them take a couple weeks to get a quote from. Usually it's a couple days, but you never want to be last minute. You never want to be caught with a lot of questions or anything on those lines. And just that 60-day out mark is really pretty good. Now if you guys got $20,000+ truck, I'm gonna go say, uh, yeah, that 90-75 days out is a little more of the mark because underwriters have a lot of different things going on. They're going to want a lot more information, financials, everything on those lines, right? Now, when you guys are trying to find who to go shop with, what insurance companies are available, what do I go with an insurance agent? I'm not just saying this because I have a bias, I'm an insurance agent. I'm I would 100% recommend an agent at all times. There are class codes, there's all sorts of different coverages. It's not your guys' job to go learn all that stuff. And if an agent does a good job, Progressive is the exact same price with an agent through online. Any insurance company online is gonna be the exact same price to an agent. You're not paying more because you have an agent. And instead of trying to figure out how to decipher what everything means and how to properly insure yourself, because you're literally protecting your business. You guys have got sometimes millions of dollars riding on the line with this stuff, and don't go try to figure it out yourself right now. How do you guys pick out a good agent? Uh, it seems like a lot of people are starting to get into trucking insurance, and you want to make sure your agent has a lot of options and they know what the heck they're doing. Trucking— you have to know the trucking industry. You guys have filings, you guys have certain things that go on, and if your agent doesn't understand what kind of cargo you're hauling or the trailer you're using or radiuses and filings, it can literally put you out of business. You need to make sure your agent is not just your home and auto guy. These guys understand trucking. They either have prior experience in trucking, they worked in other agencies as trucking, anything along those lines, right? They need to understand trucking insurance. Now, do you go call 10 agents? Do you call 1 agent? How do you handle a situation? For one, your current agent is probably going to have the best advantage here over anybody else you call because they're gonna have all your information, then get the loss runs. A lot of those guys like to sit and hold the loss runs until last minute to give them to you, and so it makes it tough for the other guys to go do the job. So obviously, if you can stay with your current agent, that might not be a bad idea. Now, if they're not doing a good job, they have prices that you think are too high for what you have, Then 100% go out and shop. It's America. That's why there's other agents out there, right? I'm just saying they have the advantage and, you know, if they're not doing a bad job and you feel like it's a really good price when you did shop out, it's not a half bad idea to maybe go get 1 or 2 other opinions, but they're going to have the best advantage there. Now, when you— how many agents do you call? I 100%— I preach this all the time. Do not call 10 people. No, because when you guys do that, if you have 5 agents going to the same insurance company, I've had this happen. This is not just me saying this. If an underwriter gets multiple submissions from multiple different agents, they're just going to go, all right, this is not somebody we want to work with. We're just going to close out the quote and not even, not even bother doing it. This doesn't sound right or fair, but underwriters want to place business. They want to win the deal somehow. And so, um, you got to have an agent who's going to be able to present you to the insurance companies, who's going to have a lot of the insurance companies and, uh, make sure you guys are getting the best option and have a good relationship with them. Because if I'm a new insurance agent and I go work with Hunter Nelson, who I worked with before, I'm at the bottom of the list. They get 30 quote requests a day, uh, and if I'm representing you to go get a quote, they're gonna be like, ah, you might get a quote. They might just skip half the options because they're busy. They want to take care of the guys they got relationships with. You're literally gonna miss out on options depending on the relationship your agent has with the underwriters. And so you might want to go call a couple agents, 3, 4, whatever. Go do some research, whatever. You're gonna interview a couple guys. Hey, how many, who do you guys have for options? And are you guys a good insurance agent? Make sure they understand trucking. See if they got any current customers doing similar stuff to what you're doing. If you're hauling a specialty thing, like let's call it mobile home toters, You go, you got any mobile home toters right now? Who you got in place with? Oh, you got one with Progressive right now? I would not recommend going that route. I would go find somebody who has experience with the stuff you're doing and they actually have clients. Because if they just say, yeah, I do trucking and they have Progressive and GEICO, when an experienced agency who's got years of business and has good relationships, they're going to have way more options. And they actually have some leeway out there. A lot of these really good insurance companies are very picky on the agencies they work with. We've got some insurance companies that we're one of 45 or one of a couple hundred out of 40,000 independent insurance agencies in the nation have. And so you can go call the other, um, 10 guys who are doing home and auto and it's— they do a little bit of trucking or they're newer to it. But they're not going to have options that an experienced agent is going to have. So that's how you pick them out. Now, what information is needed for a quote? You want to make sure you got the information to your agent, because if you're late on getting it, they're going to miss on options. Because unfortunately, it's not up to them on what the price is or what's needed for a quote. It's up to the underwriter. And if it's 1 week until your renewal and you just got your financials or IFTTTAs, well, shoot, you just missed on options and you might have cost yourself thousands of dollars throughout the process. So let's say you guys are non-fleet here. You guys are 1 in 9 trucks. That's typically your non-fleet. You're gonna need last 4 quarters of IFTA miles. This has to be coming from the state. It cannot be something that, um, whoever draws up an Excel, whatever. It has to be from the state. You need your last 3, sometimes last 5 years of loss runs. A loss run is a document that shows your claims. Even if you don't have any claims, it's a document proving you don't have any claims. Unfortunately, we will not take your word for it. They need the information on what you guys have for your business. They're gonna need the obvious, the driver information, vehicle information, or the truck and trailer information. Now when it comes to that stuff, for truck and trailer, it's VINs and values. Do you have any attached equipment? Is this a baseline truck or do you got wet line and all sorts of aftermarket bumpers on this thing? Whatever the case is, that stuff needs to be scheduled to policy. So let your agent know what's the value of the truck and trailer, And then the VINs. So they do need that. When it comes to drivers, hire date and years of CDL are two things a lot of people don't realize. Well, a lot of people do realize CDL, but they don't realize the hire date. Having the hire date is actually a huge piece. Some insurance companies will have a huge difference on the hire date. One time I had one of my operators in a 3-unit trucking company. It made a $7,000 difference between when she put the other hire dates in there afterwards. So she had to guess on it until they got the hire— the insurer got the hire dates to the agents. $7,000 discount because those drivers have been there. Your credit will come into play fairly heavily on non-fleet. So it's important to have that. ELDs, dashcams, all that stuff. That information is needed. The radius, what you're hauling for cargo, and be specific on it. You can't just say, "I'm doing general freight." I had a guy think that bulldozers went under general freight and oversized loads were excluded on the cargo policy. And so thank God we found that out beforehand because I'm like, dude, you gotta tell me more about what you're doing. Um, reefer, you cannot just say I'm hauling reefer, right? Because a lot of insurance policies will exclude seafood, hanging meat, swinging meat, eggs, that kind of stuff. Sometimes they'll go in there and exclude even more. And see, I'm hauling reefer. What is it? Produce? You doing eggs and seafood? What's going on. Because an unqualified agent might just go in there and say, I'm here hauling reefer, and you might not realize the most expensive stuff you're hauling is excluded because you didn't tell your agent what's being hauled, and the agent just doesn't know exactly what's going on. So you got to be specific with that stuff. That's majority of the stuff there for non-fleet. When you guys get into fleet, it's going to be things like financials. They're going to want to see your financials, your P&L, Your income sheet, your— or your income statements, your balance sheet, all sort of stuff. And what's your hiring practices? How are you picking out these drivers? What's going on there? Do you have any other exposures? Now, a lot of you guys got shops. Is that open to the public, or you guys just got in-house mechanics there? You might want to get the buildings insured. The workers' comp's fairly basic. What do you guys got for a couple procedures? What's your EIN, payroll, and who's the payroll going to? Because in-office employees, dispatchers, is going to be a lot cheaper for work comp than those truckers out there. You got your mechanics, that's going to be different rating than the truckers. So that kind of thing. But they want to know how your business runs on Fleet. They want to know the ins and outs of your business. And they're going to want to see why you've got the cab scores you got. Your ISS is a 90. What's going on there? What's being done to improve that? What's your safety team look like? Do you have third-party compliance? Because on that stuff, your premiums— when you get to fleet, your premium's not the only thing that matters. It's the cost of risk. You might have $100,000 in claims. Let's be somewhat realistic. You might have a couple hundred thousand dollars in claims, but it's costing you even hundreds of thousands of dollars more in indirect costs with your employees being hurt. Now they don't want to come back to work. Now the claim has happened and damages reputations. We see guys who have accidents at the loading station and their brokers are cutting their contracts because they got an unqualified driver smoking the retaining wall, right? So understanding that kind of stuff. And yeah, that's pretty much majority of it. Once it gets time to bind, a good agent's gonna have a portal for ID cards, COIs, all that sort of stuff. You know, if you guys are fleet, should be having your agent sell anything is going wrong, they should be having a qualified customer service rep or account manager who's dealing with you the day to day because agents are on the phone, on meetings, doing education. So they're— I mean, my day to day is very busy. I want to have somebody who's going to be available 24/7 to get that truck added if I'm meeting with somebody else. And then when, you know, uh, things go wrong, hey, you got to have an agent that's going to be able to answer the phone. So That's the process of shopping, guys. That's how you shop your insurance, how you do it effectively. Don't go shop your insurance every single year. Don't go hit 10 agents every single year. Relationships matter on this stuff. Now, if you guys are starting up brand new, go shop every single year. Things are going to be changing. We qualify more insurance companies. You got 50 trucks? No. A lot of these guys are with the same insurance company for 20 years. Now, do you have to be with them for 20 years? No. But you don't want to just go burn a bridge on somebody who's treating you well, offering you a good price, and, uh, they're going to want to keep you as a good client if you guys have a mutual good relationship, right? Now, it's America, you should be double-checking prices every once in a while for sure. So if you guys got any questions on this, would like me to help you out, by all means don't hesitate to reach out. I'm Hunter Nelson Insurance Agency, we're based out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And I appreciate you guys watching.
