In this video, Hunter Nelson of Nelson Insurance explains the unique insurance considerations for milk‑hauling tanker truckers. He outlines the appropriate coverages—cargo liability, physical damage, workers’ compensation, cyber, and pollution liability—detailing typical limits (e.g., $25k‑$50k cargo, $1M auto liability) and why milk is treated as a pollutant rather than a hazmat. Nelson discusses how physical‑damage premiums dominate milk‑hauler policies and presents strategies to lower costs, such as splitting physical‑damage coverage for small fleets, using Self‑Insured Retentions (SIRs) or captives for larger operations, and leveraging mileage or revenue reporting to earn premium discounts. He emphasizes the importance of cyber insurance to protect against ransomware, false invoicing, and data breaches, especially for ELD‑exempt fleets. A key focus is the CA9948 commercial auto pollution endorsement, which combines auto liability and pollution coverage into a single policy, avoiding gaps that could expose haulers to multi‑million‑dollar claims if milk contaminates water sources. Nelson also advises on selecting insurers—agricultural‑focused carriers (e.g., Sakira, Grinnell, CWG, Nationwide) versus general trucking carriers—and stresses ongoing agent engagement to track mileage/revenue and adjust premiums. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to reach out with questions, like, and subscribe.
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Hey guys, I am Hunter with Nelson Insurance. I'm going to go over milk hauling insurance here today. Yes, you got a couple things that are different than normal, but when you really get down to each cargo type, there's gonna be little different, uh, variances with each. And you guys want to know the available insurance companies, know the coverages, how are things rated, uh, everything is a little bit different per cargo type. And so I'm going to get down into that. So Nelson Insurance, based out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Uh, all we do is trucking. Let's get into it. All right, so when you guys get into mail calling, we're talking about for-hire trucking here. Now, yes, we could go into like dairies, anything on those lines. You guys are hauling your own product, a lot of that's going to apply here, maybe not all the exact same insurance companies. I'll just quickly mention, if you guys are hauling your own product, uh, you guys may have a little bit different insurance companies, uh, such as more agriculture-related instead of trucking-focused insurance companies like Sakira, Grinnell, CWG, Nationwide. It kind of depends. There's, there's all sorts of agricultural companies out there. I can get into the list for a while here, but when you guys are doing milk hauling for hire, you guys are tanker truckers, what does that all look like, right? So I'll get into first here the coverages. When you guys are looking for coverages on this stuff, yes, you guys are hauling something that is a pollutant, but no, you do not need $5 million in coverage for hazmat-related operations, anything along those lines. So you guys are sitting good there. Uh, pretty much all you guys know that already. So million-dollar liability cargo, typically it's a lot cheaper on the cargo side. So I mean, I could rip out the $100,000, just be safe, because that's what most of your guys' contracts— customers, brokers, whatever— are gonna want. Uh, typically you guys would go on that $25,000, $50,000 range. For the cargo. If, if just kind of depends obviously the value of the milk that you guys are hauling, right? And then you've got all sorts of different things. If you guys are a 1 to 9 unit, you guys might have workers' compensation. It's going to be fairly similar price to the rest of the trucking industry. Cyber is going to be a big deal. You guys are definitely going to want cyber on this stuff. Now you guys can definitely be ELD exempt, so that does help your exposure there some. But with cyber insurance, it's being protected against false invoices, you know, camera data getting hacked so you can't track your trucks, and then they're going to go in there, try to steal them, or just lock you out to ransomware. Hey, why don't you go and pay me $300,000 and I'll give you back access to your software. Otherwise, you know, and you don't have the required documents for the DOT, you're going to get fined. You don't know what's going on, and they'll be trying to pull a cyber— I suppose a cyber attack, but a cyber-related attack on you, or straight-up just steal the cargo and/or trailer. So that's something you want to look at. Obviously there's other coverages on there. You can get umbrellas if you guys are looking at that at some point here, and I will get into kind of difference here for Melcalling here in a minute. But one of the big things on the coverage side is when you guys have physical damage. Now when you guys have got a truck tractor for milk hauling and tankers, almost everybody I see has got very red equipment. You guys gotta have nice tankers, equipment's new, it's upkept. You guys have got, what's the word I'm looking for, aftermarket attachments on it, permanently attached equipment, anything along those lines. So with you guys having physical damage being a bigger chunk of your premium than percentage-wise compared to maybe most other trucking companies, That's going to be a big key piece of your guys' insurance. Now, there's kind of routes to go around this or a couple routes to go and handle this. If you guys are on the smaller end of side of things, maybe 1 to 5 trucks, anything like that, you definitely can look at splitting up your physical damage. We've got an insurance company that loves splitting up physical damage. They're very competitive on it. They'll take tankers all day long. There's pretty much less risk for the mail callers out there than there is for most because you guys take such good care of your equipment compared to the rest of the industry. Not that everybody else goes and beats it up, but you guys do have nice equipment compared to everybody else. And so splitting up that coverage might not be a half-bad idea. Otherwise, if you guys are large, you guys can look at SIRs and captives. That's not going to be for physical damage, but that can help lower your guys' total cost of risk by taking on some of that risk. If you guys are doing a lot more maintenance than everybody else, you might be able to actually have a little, little margin there for you guys to make some money on it. So looking at SIRs and captives might not be a bad idea. The other big key piece is doing mileage reporters. That's gonna be a huge thing. Now a lot of this time you're not gonna go on there and actually save a bunch of money on the physical damage, but if you got a good competitive rate on the physical damage with the insurance company, and let's say their auto liability is a little bit higher, it might actually not be half bad because you guys are typically driving less miles than the rest of the industry as well. It's more local, and, uh, again, equipment's being handled while loading and unloading time is a little bit longer than normal. So you guys are throwing on less mileage than typically the rest industry. Now, a lot of the guys we do have around that 50,000-60,000 mile range, uh, yearly per truck. We do have some people who are going over 100,000, but they're doing like team— they just got those trucks running constantly. Because you guys are running weekends, nights, all sort of stuff as well. So if you're over $100,000, a mileage reporter is not going to be a good idea for you. Revenue reporters might not be a bad idea. I'll get into what else it means here in a second, but a revenue reporter can help with the fluctuation of, uh, just the revenue, obviously, instead of the mileage. Um, now it's not gonna make a massive difference between the mileage and the revenue reporter, but it's another way to look at things, right? Uh, let's say the market's just hard and you're just not making a whole lot of money, you're getting lower than industry average per rate per mile. Well, then a revenue reporter might not be a half-bad idea, right? You guys got a lot of dead miles, whatever the case is. Now when you guys looking at this, this is going to be coming into play on fleets. Now you can do pay-per-mile, which is very similar to a mile reporter. A pay-per-mile is a little bit more, um, technology-based, quick and accurate. Where a revenue reporter is going to be more so, hey, let me know your miles. We double-check them. Carrier charges you based off of that. I mean, insurance company. So when you guys are looking at that for the revenue reporter or mileage reporter, whatever, mileage reporter is just monthly mileage, or they can be doing yearly either. Uh, it just kind of depends on the insurance company, but say, hey, I've got X amount of trucks. I'm gonna be doing a million miles this year. Okay, great. Let's just say, for example, this is, uh, yearly. You go out there and drive 900,000 miles. Great, you're getting 10% of your premium back for whatever lines they're doing the mileage reporting on. Uh, typically be auto liability. They can throw in other lines in there as well, just kind of depends insurance company to insurance company. So then if you guys are familiar with work comp, it's very much just like that. You guys go say your payroll's going to be a million bucks, ends up being $900,000, you get 10% back. Vice versa, you say it's a million, it's $1.5 million, you got to pay an extra 50% of premium. Which is why a good insurance agent should be reaching out to you throughout the year and keeping track of that stuff, right? So that is a good way to really go in here and, and, uh, help those premiums just because you guys do have differences between this stuff. Now I'm gonna back up here for a second and talk about another coverage that's a huge key piece for trucking insurance when it comes to, uh, milk hauling, right, is pollution liability. Now I was talking about it's not hazmat, but it is pollutant. And the reason I go out here and make videos about this stuff when it comes to agricultural trucking is because that's a lot of what we do. And there are differences there. We have different insurance companies that specifically only want to do agricultural trucking. And so we've got a program that we work with that's nationwide. And they use a very good insurance company for the paper, which is like their policy language. That means you're getting a good, good insurance policy, good coverage and everything. But what they do is only, um, agricultural or environmental hazards. And so milk is going to be an environmental hazard when you guys are hauling milk and that thing gets into a stream. The program's largest claim was for millions of dollars and it was milk getting into a water system, or I think it was actually just a stream. I should say water system, but it was getting into a stream. And it was millions of dollars. And so, uh, they actually don't even have pollution coverage like a separate— it's going to be a pollution endorsement to your auto liability. So now you got pollution liability and auto liability all in the same number, which is good because now you don't have two different policies with gaps between the language there. So I can actually kind of help you guys out, and I'm not going to get all insurance jargoned out here too much. What that endorsement is called is the CA9948. So CA for commercial auto, it is the form number and name saying, hey, here is going to be your guys's, uh, endorsement for this. And it will go out there and do that, create the two policies, or add the endorsement, and really help you guys out. So I'm not going to get too much more into it. There are plenty of other things to do for mail calling, but there's some ways on how to Look for good insurance companies. Make sure you guys have your coverage just set and done, because if you get into an accident, do not have pollution liability, you guys are with a big name normal insurance company, doesn't offer the stuff or have a separate pollution policy. Uh, every day you guys go on the road there, you guys are putting your business at risk. And then, um, you know how you guys can save on this and how to set up your policy. So if you guys have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Uh, again, I'm Hunter Nelson with Nelson Insurance Agency. We're out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We're in 42 states. And, uh, being in the Midwest, agricultural is our main thing. So appreciate you guys' help, or, uh, appreciate you guys listening to this. Please like and subscribe and let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.
