Hunter NelsonOwner of Nelson Insurance Agency

Truck Insurance Shopping: When To Start?

11 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this concise instructional video, Hunter Nelson explains how the size and age of a trucking fleet dictate the optimal lead time for beginning the insurance shopping process. For smaller or newer fleets (around 5–10 trucks), he advises starting about 60–75 days before the renewal date, noting that loss runs—essential documents showing past claims—can take several weeks to obtain. For larger fleets (20+ trucks), he recommends initiating the search earlier, roughly 75–90 days out, because underwriters will request more extensive information and documentation. The overall message is to begin the shopping process well in advance to avoid last‑minute complications and ensure sufficient time to gather required data.

Chapters

the nitty-gritty. When do I shop? 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. 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. You can start shopping those markets, or the agent can start shopping those markets 60 days out. 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+ trucks, 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.