Box Truck Insurance

Recently Box Truck operators' rates are going up in the marketplace and what your company can do to try to combat some of these challenges and reduce insurance rates moving forward.

Box Truck Insurance Market Availability

In today's market Box Truck operators are in a very niche place when it comes to their Commercial Trucking Insurance that is available for them. For example, if you are operating a Truck-Tractor not only do you have an abundance of A-Rated carriers to choose from but there is also a wide variety of different Risk Retention Groups that could also offer coverage in the event an A-Rated carrier is not an option.

However, for Box Truck operators most Risk Retention Groups do not offer coverage for this unit type so you are more limited to your market's options, and which carriers will accept you. If you are in the position of high safety scores or high loss runs and are having a difficult time finding a fair insurance option, please reach out to me as we have a market that is looking to help people in that situation and we are 1 of 4 agencies in the country that work with them. 801-998-2514.

Radius of Operation

Another major factor that is going to play into Box Truck Insurance is going to be your radius of operation; there are a lot of fantastic Box Truck programs out there if you are staying between 300-500 miles from your garaging location but if you are going over 500 miles those market options will significantly drop. The reason for this is there are typically no "Sleepers" in Box Trucks so the insurance companies are assuming that you would not be running any loads that require you to stay overnight in your vehicle along with the fact that claims typically increase with the extended radius.

While there are still insurance options available for Box Truck operators going over 500 miles, you will find that the market options are very limited and you typically will end up paying a higher price point for the insurance each month.

With the being said, it is imperative to set the proper radius when requesting your quotes and make sure to double check your policy documents to ensure the proper radius was selected (along with the other required coverages) for your company and that you are not overpaying on your insurance costs.

CDL (Commercial Driver's License)

In most cases a CDL is not required to operation a Box Truck as you are typically running under 26,000 pounds however we are seeing more and more Box Truck drivers obtaining CDL's to cover their basis as a lot of the times depending on your loaded weight you could end up barely exceeding that threshold which will lead to a severe violation on the FMCSA and negatively impacting your safety scores.

If you know for a fact that you will always be staying below 26,000 pounds then this step is not necessary however I have insured multiple Box Truck operations that ended up getting overloaded from the broker/shipper and ended up receiving the mentioned violation so just make sure you are referring to the bill of lading provided by the broker/shipper to ensure that you are not being overloaded.

Having a CDL will also introduce additional insurance markets, over the last 2 years we have seen about 3-4 different carriers make that switch and are now requiring that Box Truck drivers have CDL's if they are to offer a quote. Most of the insurance markets will still offer coverage without CDL drivers but something to keep in mind over the next few years as we could see other markets follow suit and start to require CDL's for Box Truck drivers as well.

 

Choosing a Transportation Specialist

There are a lot of agencies out there that are offering Commercial Trucking Insurance, some agencies specialize specifically in Commercial Trucking & Transportation while others are not and are also doing Life Insurance, Health Insurance, etc. With all of the complexity that comes with a Commercial Trucking policy you want to make sure you are working with a Transportation Specialist that knows the industry and has a variety of different carrier options to place you with to ensure you are getting as many different options back as possible.