What Factors Determine Your Truck Insurance Premiums?

Alright, so let's get into how these insurance companies determine the rates and what that all consists of. So I'm Hunter with Nelson Insurance. Let's get into it. Alright, so here we go. We've got rating factors on what goes into insurance. Now I've got kind of a long list here really. Not all this is going to be for every single insurance company. If you got somebody like Progressive, Verse, AmTrust or Canal, it's going to be way, way different, right? So they're not going to be exactly the same things. But we'll kind of show you here all the factors and then from here you can kind of decide on oh, you know, this side of my business is not so pretty. Let's go find an insurance company who doesn't write off of this or this side of my business is really pretty. So who's going to really write off this? So it could really help you determine the best insurance company, all sort of stuff. Whereas that might be why some of these insurance companies probably double, triple of the quotes you're getting because they're really rating off of different stuff. So let's start with like Progressive here, right? So I'm gonna get a blue marker and I'll just kind of show you guys what Progressive the, you know, the main, one, biggest, largest insurance company by a long shot is really the rating office. I just got blue, I'm gonna put a blue dash by it. So credit score Massive, massive, massive, massive for Progressive. There are insurance companies out there who don't even rate off your credit score. But if you have good credit, you're going to be dirt cheap with Progressive. I've got a guy who's with Progressive paying 5,700 bucks a year, pays in full. And I go quote on what some of the big guys who are usually going to beat them usually be Progressive if they, you know, qualify for these other insurance companies. Like I went and quoted iat, Northland Canal, Berkeley, on and on and on and nobody was even touch progressive, not Geico, not nothing. I mean it was like three, $4,000 in difference from the next cheapest quote to Progressive because this guy's credit was phenomenal. So Progressive rates heavily off that everybody is, is going to rate off the value of your truck like crazy. I mean it really just matters if you had $10,000 truck versus 150,001, it's going to be a huge difference age the truck. Progressive probably doesn't care about that actually all that much. It might be a little bit of a factor, but I'm not even going to mark it because it's probably so small. ELD and dash cam, they do kind of because they give a discount if you have a motive. ELD and dash cam or even another dash. Can you get a 5% discount all the way up to a 30% discount for having motive. Eld and dash cam, you're the miles. See like this big thing right here. I've got a guy who's got four drivers in one truck hammering miles on this thing and, and it's with Geico, they don't ask miles. Or sometimes they do not typically though, depends on the class code. But yeah, so I'm kind of blanking out. They do but like Progressive could really care less. Some of these guys could really care less. Some of them want your IFTA to go see where you're driving and how much you're driving. Years of CDL definitely does matter. They don't ask you but they're gonna pull it. MBR is massive, massive, massive. With Progressive they're not gonna rate off your loss runs really at all because they don't even ask your loss runs. So with like Progressive, I'm not giving you guys a loophole here by any means. I'm not saying go take advantage of this thing. But if you got a driver who turns in five claims, bunches different stuff and you fire them, you get the squeaky clean new driver on there, it's a perfect mbr. Progressive's really not going to write off of most of that, most of that stuff. So I mean, yeah, it's kind of crazy. It's of kind kind of crazy what they do. But MVR credits pretty big there. Turnover data higher, not so much there. Cargo type 100% years of business, 100% radius is huge with progressive cab scores, definitely Lawson's. Like we said, they'll even look at those or even ask them where you're hauling to. Doesn't matter. Location huge. Grove, not really. So as you can see here like maybe half the stuff Progressive even rates off of. Okay, so I'll get back into everything here now but I'm just wanting to give you guys an example that not even all this stuff is going to be rated off of when it comes to some of the big insurance companies. Okay, so let's just get into it now. Owner, we have credit score. Credit score is going to be a play with probably 80% of your insurance companies. Our largest insurance company does write off credit score. They don't pull it. They look at your payment history on the fmcsa. So every time that you guys have a non payment your filing gets canceled, reactivated. We're not. I just want to make sure this is emphasized, not your authority but the filing showing up on your FMCSA or your safer, your cab, whatever. So if you go through the policy period and I can see that five filings were repost your policy period, you non paid five times throughout that point or name change or something and that's where, that's where my big insurance company 104 is going to look at it at. So they don't look at what insurance company currently with. But then you go to Progressive, geico, all that stuff, your credit score is going to be massive. We had somebody who had a bankruptcy, everybody was stupid, expensive. Progressive was 50k one truck or Geico's 40k went to a program who didn't pull an MV or who didn't pull a credit report or a soft pull. Not a credit report but soft pulling your credit. And sure enough they were, I mean less, way less than half the price. Management safety this is going to be really big. If you are in the fleet space they want to know what your safety protocols look like. Do you have management experience if you haven't been in business for a whole long time or you're growing really quick or anything along those lines they want to see your safety scores like so what does that stuff really come into play? So I've got caps goes on here but they want to know about that story behind things. What are you doing with stuff? Equipment. Equipment makes a huge difference. Most insurance companies have a rate. Well every insurance company has a set rate for that truck or they're going to give you a rate for the truck. And the reason I say that not everybody does because there's differences here. So I'm going to kind of write over here. So let's say you got a $100,000 truck and excuse poor handwriting here times I'd say an average rate. I mean it really could depend. I've got guys who are half a percent because you're in business for a while. They're really good. If you're a new venture you might be close to that 6 or 5% something. We'll go 5% for easy math here which is not real uncommon. 5% you are going to be 5K. Whoops. Not, not 500K. Okay. So yeah hopefully that kind of makes sense there for 5% 100K. That's just basically what they're doing there. So you know, the longer you've been in business More trucks, you got the more tiv total insured value, you got a big fleet, they'll look at that total insured value instead of that one truck. But I mean, obviously here, you know, Canal, for example, is 5% rate. Okay, 5%, 100 grand, 5 grand. You go in there, insure $20,000 truck, not to be a thousand bucks. So the value obviously makes a difference, the age makes a difference. If you have a truck that's two L3LDs, some insurance companies won't take you. You actually very well could be limited to like progressive Geico, Great west, stuff like that could hurt you, you know, so having newer trucks a lot better. They know they got the safety features, all that stuff, ELDs or dash cams, a lot more of insurance companies starting to write your ELD data. Whether you guys like it or not. Nobody really likes it that much. But more insurance companies are just going to get to that point and if they're not requiring it, they're going to offer a big discount for you. You'll be paying a lot more if you don't connect ELD data. Some of these insurance companies, like Ten4, one of our biggest guys, they connect ELD just to make sure you got all the trucks insured. They don't care what you really do. They know hard stops is just a way of you preventing an accident. You know, you got to do a hard stop every once in a while to make sure. Not smoking somebody, they're not going to ding you for that. You know, sometimes you get to speed up a little bit to get out of the way danger. I mean, it's just how stuff goes. They understand you guys aren't perfect or the ELD date on there is not going to be perfect because you guys are maneuvering around the road trying not to cause an accident. So they, they don't even look at that. They just make sure all the trucks are on there. Now some companies like Color Whale are going to monitor that data throughout the year and you make a 30% discount, you might get an increase. So then, yeah, I mean they're going to take some of that into play. If you go over 10 miles an hour, yeah, they're going to, they're going to ding you. They're going to kind of count that against your discount there. Dash cam the same way like 10 4, they offer 5% discount. You get a dash cam great, 5% discount. If you don't have one and you want to get one through Nexar, their partner, sure, it's 5% discount so they'll do that stuff. Progressive's discount for dash cam is unreal. I mean you go in there, you get, gosh, it's like an extra like 20 or 25%. I can't remember right now, but it's another. Maybe it's 10, maybe it's just 10 extra. But whatever it is, it's a, it's double digits. It's a big, big discount on you guys. Insurance for just having a moto dash cam. So a lot of insurance companies kind of get that way, especially Nirvana. HDVI Nirvana just want. I'm kind of stepping back here or stepping away from the main point. Nirvana is taking over fleets like crazy right now. They've only been out for about four years. They have 520 fleets, I'm sure, which may not seem like a whole lot, but it is, it is quite a bit of fleets for not being out real long. You got to have a compatible ELD or. Yeah, ELD dash cam, whatever they connect. I mean I've seen them. Last month they just closed 130th unit and they were $10,000 a truck on it. I heard a story where Great west was 600,000 on a fleet and they came in at 380,000. I mean it's just like nuts. They're taking over fleets like crazy now. Fleet's not, not as, as big, but they're still definitely doing well there. And 10, four, I mean they're fantastic. You get more than one truck. They're inquired to connect it. If you guys don't connect, you guys are missing out big time. It is some big time savings yearly mileage. Now if you are not quoting a progressive geico, some of these direct guys, yeah, they want to know your yearly mileage. You know, like Berkeley requires that you drive under 125,000 miles a year. National Interstate, fantastic company. Same with Berkeley. They require you're under roughly about 110. And something along those lines where you're not cranking up miles like crazy. So they want you to be lower miles. Drivers is probably one of the biggest things. Years of CDL is huge. If you're not. If you don't have drivers over two years of CDL. Now some companies let you get away with like one of 10 or one of six drivers being just under two years. But if you got 50% for example, under two year CDL or most of them, whatever, catch. Okay, you're looking at progressive. No requirement Geico, no requirement. BHC 6 months requirement. AmTrust is one year requirement. And after that you're going to go with some no name RGs, risk retention groups that yeah, I'd be a little nervous about. You know I've never heard of their claims branch like Alpine mtm, all type of stuff. You know there's just a couple Rogs out there that require low year or lower years of CDL experience. I would just be, just be careful at stuff. They're not ambus rated, you know they're, they're not. You know it just depends on what their financials look like. So you know I just be careful if you're going to get into that space. If yeah, I mean it's just kind of tough or you get into a captive and you basically can make some of the rules there and be ours. I mean it's obvious. Your motor vehicle report, you get a driver with 10 accidents. Yeah, good luck insuring them. You have two I felt accident. Good luck paying something reasonable, you know. So depends on insurance company but you can fire that guy and you know, it might not even show up in your port and Great west or Progressive and GEICO taking a problem. You get lost runs. They're still gonna show up in the last ones like couple years. You say you fired them though a little story and hey, what you gonna do next time? You know you'll probably get somewhat around it, right? Turnover and data hire, big, big deal. Depends on the insurance company though. Again like most insurance companies actually don't really care, Iet who's been really competitive lately. We just had a three truck guy, 31,000 for the year. I don't even know, three, four years in business, something like that. And yeah, yeah, reefer guy. So I had a reefer breakdown, all that sort of stuff on there. And sure enough, you know, data hire made a massive difference. They said it actually made like $4,000 in difference on one of the drivers being hired a couple years ago when the company started versus just being let on right now. Cargo type. I mean this is pretty obvious. You're hauling sanding, you're hauling grain dirt cheap, you're hauling oversized loads, mobile homes. It's gonna be a lot more expensive, you know, use business. Again, fairly obvious deal. Most insurance companies are required to be in business two, three years. So you know, in your new venture your options are very limited. Get two years now you get 10, four, you get Northland, you get Iet Nirvana, stuff like that. Once you get three years you get Midwest Family Mutual, you get Berkeley, you get Crum and forester, you get AmTrust or AmTrust will take them like our AmTrust program, the Amazon program, these three years of business radius, huge deal, 50 miles versus unlimited. I mean you could be talking shaving 30% of the price off, it's big difference. Or radius CAB scores, just CSA scores. Don't get racked, don't rack up a bunch of violations, don't rack up severe violations. Don't get alerts by having so many violations that go to our threshold and now you're alerted. Brokers see it, insurance companies see it, they hate it. So don't get that. Loss runs claims, pretty self explanatory. A lot of people don't understand what loss run is. It's a document from your insurance company showing when the claim happened, how many claims he had, what the payouts were when they happened, blah blah blah blah. If you got no claims, it doesn't mean you don't have no, you don't have any loss fronts. Just means you have a blank sheet basically saying no claims. Companies love to see it. So if you need loss, most insurance companies need loss fronts. You know, you may not, you may not. If you've never heard of lost runs or had to get them, you probably have not been shopped with that many insurance companies. I will recommend getting your loss runs and finding some insurance companies that will take them because usually the guys reading off loss runs are going to be some of the best where you're hauling to. Not many insurance companies can be writing off of this but like nirvana is very heavy. They don't want you in New Jersey, A lot of insurance companies don't want you in Jersey because the $1.5 million limit, now that's required by, by them. So we're hauling to can be a big difference if you're going through Houston, if you're going through big cities, big states. The ELD guys hate to see it. Northland, some of those guys, they're gonna see it programs like yeah, if you guys don't know a program is, it's like clear blue, Trishura, obsidian. Basically it's just like these in house insurance companies, they can be good but they want to see that stuff your state, where you're located, big deal. A lot of people pretty much know this. I would. Here's the big thing, a lot of guys go, oh, I've had people ask me this, I'm in Florida, I'm in New York, I'm in Texas. Can I say, can I move my business, my LLC to Iowa? No, you cannot. You can try. You might get a claim Denied Though your business state and the in the garaging state for the trucks basically has to be the same progressive. Most of you guys may don't know this. Your trucks have to be garage in the same state that your policy is at. Progressive is actually not allow it. So if they catch you guys at claims time, they're going to be doing some underwriting and you might get a claim denied. And you don't want that happen when you just paid 200,000 over the last three years for insurance. So how many trucks you got? And you just got a million dollar claim denied. You just paid 200 grand for a piece of paper. So don't try to cheat the system. These loopholes. There's no such thing as a loophole on insurance. You're gonna get screwed because your buddy told you to. We are not trying. I for one don't make the premiums. I am not trying to get you hosed. Frankly, I want the lowest price for everybody because, because it keeps my clients longer. And that's how insurance companies make money. And so the longer I can keep a client, great, that's better. It helps me out, I can build a relationship. I it's way more expensive go bring on a new client than go try to find a new or bring on a new one than keep an existing one. So I'm gonna give you guys lowest price every time. So if I can do something to get lower, I'm gonna talk about it and growth. You know, don't go from four to 40 trucks in two months. You guys are gonna get canceled real quick. Some insurance companies do allow it, not very many. You're talking like single digit percentage. Insurance companies allow it and if that's the case then you gotta have a really good plan. You have to find an underwriter to talk to them about it and you know, have a good story for it. So don't go just thinking, man, let's grow this baby. Amazon wants me to grow. So be careful and make sure your insurance company is comfortable with it as you will get canceled, your rates will get jacked up. It's not gonna be a fun time. So thanks for watching guys. Please like subscribe. You guys got any questions on anything here, let me know, I'm happy to help. Big shout out to 104 truck insurance got their shirt on, went and visited them here two days ago. So yeah, thanks for watching.