Hunter NelsonOwner of Nelson Insurance Agency

Trucking Insurance Finding Options for New Ventures

10 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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In this segment, Hunter Nelson explains how the trucking insurance market is highly fragmented, with insurers imposing very specific eligibility requirements such as minimum fleet size, years in operation, cargo type, and geographic service area. These narrow criteria drastically reduce the pool of available carriers for a new trucking venture, often leaving only a handful—typically four to ten, and sometimes as few as four or five—viable quote options. Nelson highlights examples like insurers that only cover Amazon haulers with at least five trucks and three years in business, or those limited to agricultural freight within a 300‑mile radius, illustrating why new operators face a constrained selection of insurers.

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Now, does that mean when you're going to go to an agent, you're going to get 70 different insurance quotes? You have an insurance company that only takes Amazon haulers with at least 5 trucks and 3 years in business. That fits 0.5% of the truckers out there. There's insurance companies where you have to haul in farm— well, not farm equipment, but like agricultural operations, so livestock, grain, whatever, within a 300-mile radius. There's a couple of them out there like that. You get guys who don't want to take new ventures. You got guys who only take fleets. There's a million different variables out there. So when it all comes down to it, you might have 5 or 10 options, maybe, right? If you're a new venture, it's very few. You've got like, I don't know, 4 or 5 options, maybe 6 if you're lucky, options for new ventures.