Truck Insurance Costs Are Outrunning Crash Improvements. Shippers Should Care.

Truck insurance has become one of the quieter cost shocks inside freight procurement. It does not show up as neatly as diesel, tolls, detention, or accessorials. But when commercial auto premiums rise faster than inflation for nearly a decade, the pressure eventually lands in carrier rates, broker contracts, coverage requirements, and routing-guide risk.

The latest data point is blunt. According to FreightWaves, the American Transportation Research Institute found that average annual commercial auto premium increases reached 8.3% from 2017 through 2025, while U.S. inflation averaged 3.9% over the same period. That is not a normal cost adjustment. It is a structural repricing of trucking risk.

The uncomfortable part is that the increase is not simply tracking worsening safety outcomes. FreightWaves reported that ATRI found the rate of heavy-duty truck crashes involving injury or fatality, measured per 100 million miles, declined 8.4% during the same period. In other words, fleets can be improving on serious crash frequency while still facing a more expensive insurance market.

For shippers, that disconnect matters. Insurance is not just a carrier back-office expense. It is a signal about market capacity, financial resilience, and the cost of transferring risk across the transportation chain.

Why Premium Pressure Flows Into Freight Rates

Carrier operating costs are already thin-margin math. Insurance is one of the few expenses that can reprice suddenly, vary sharply by fleet size, and determine whether a carrier can even run certain freight. When premiums rise faster than general inflation, carriers have three choices: absorb the cost, reduce coverage or risk appetite, or push the cost into pricing.

Absorbing it is rarely sustainable. FreightWaves noted that ATRI cited AM Best data showing the commercial auto insurance combined ratio has exceeded 100 every year since 2014, except 2021. A combined ratio above 100 means insurers are paying more in claims and expenses than they collect in premiums. The ratio was 109.2 in 2023 and 107.2 in 2024. That helps explain why premiums can keep rising even when recent crash metrics improve: insurers are trying to recover from years of underwriting losses.

Coverage availability is also tightening. ATRI said some insurers have reduced coverage limits or exited markets entirely, forcing motor carriers to seek additional insurers to complete policy stacks or retain more risk than they want. That creates procurement risk. A carrier that had adequate coverage last year may enter a bid cycle with higher deductibles, lower limits, or a more fragile insurance tower.

Small and midsize fleets feel this hardest. FreightWaves reported ATRI's 2024 premium cost estimates at 20.3 cents per mile for fleets with 5 to 25 trucks, compared with 6.6 cents per mile for fleets with more than 1,000 trucks. Fleets with 26 to 100 trucks saw costs rise 50.5% between 2020 and 2024, while fleets with more than 1,000 trucks were still up 40.4% over that period.

That spread changes the carrier landscape. Smaller fleets often provide lane flexibility, regional density, specialized service, and surge capacity. If insurance costs make those carriers less competitive or push them out of certain freight, shippers lose optionality.

Broker Liability Raises the Stakes

Insurance pressure is not limited to asset carriers. The legal environment around freight brokers is also changing.

In a separate FreightWaves report, a broker liability case involving Echo Global Logistics was sent back to a lower court after the Supreme Court's Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II decision. The Montgomery ruling held that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act's motor vehicle safety exception can apply to brokers, allowing negligent-hiring claims to proceed in certain circumstances.

That does not mean every broker becomes liable for every carrier accident. It does mean carrier-selection processes will face more scrutiny, and the insurance market will price that uncertainty. Plaintiff attorneys are already framing broker involvement as a path to additional recovery when carrier limits are insufficient; FreightWaves quoted one law firm arguing that a $1 million policy may not compensate a catastrophic-loss client and that Montgomery "changes that math."

Shippers should not treat this as a lawyer-only issue. If brokers face higher liability costs, those costs can appear in brokerage margins, contract requirements, or stricter carrier qualification rules. If brokers become more selective, spot coverage may become less flexible on difficult lanes.

What Procurement Teams Should Ask

The right response is not to panic or demand unrealistic coverage from every carrier. It is to make insurance and risk controls visible during procurement.

Start with coverage adequacy. Ask carriers and brokers what insurance limits they carry by shipment type, whether deductibles changed materially, and whether exclusions apply to your freight. A certificate of insurance is useful, but it is not the same as understanding whether coverage matches operational risk.

Next, ask about renewal timing. A carrier bidding aggressively two months before renewal may face a premium increase that changes its cost base before the contract is half complete. Procurement teams should know when major insurance renewals occur and whether pricing assumes stable premiums.

Then ask how safety data influences insurance outcomes. Fleets that use dashcams, telematics, driver coaching, documented maintenance workflows, and incident-review programs may be better positioned with underwriters. That does not guarantee lower rates, but it shows a stronger risk-management discipline than a carrier relying on paperwork alone.

For brokers, go deeper on carrier vetting. Ask which safety ratings, authority checks, insurance validations, CSA indicators, and exception workflows are reviewed before tender. Ask whether the broker can produce a shipment-level audit trail showing why a carrier was selected. After Montgomery, vague assurances are weak controls.

Finally, separate price from fragility. The lowest linehaul rate may come from a carrier carrying more retained risk than your freight profile can tolerate. If an insurance shock would force that carrier to reject tenders, cut coverage, or exit a lane, the apparent savings are not real savings.

Turn Insurance Risk Into Transportation Data

Insurance cost inflation is a warning that freight procurement needs better visibility into carrier economics. Shippers do not need to become underwriters, but they do need a way to connect insurance records, carrier safety indicators, broker controls, lane history, claims, and tender performance in one workflow.

That is where a modern TMS becomes more than a load board or rating engine. Carrier master data should include insurance thresholds, renewal dates, cargo-specific requirements, safety gates, and exception approvals. Routing guides should flag carriers that fall below coverage rules before a planner tenders a shipment. Brokered freight should maintain a record of who selected the carrier, what checks were performed, and when those checks occurred.

Truck insurance costs are outrunning the simple story that fewer serious crashes automatically mean lower premiums. Litigation risk, insurer losses, coverage reductions, and broker liability are now part of the freight cost base. Shippers that track it early can negotiate smarter and build more resilient carrier portfolios.

CXTMS helps logistics teams bring carrier risk into daily transportation execution. From insurance visibility and carrier qualification to broker controls and audit-ready shipment records, CXTMS gives procurement and operations teams the data they need before risk becomes disruption.

Ready to strengthen freight procurement with better carrier intelligence? Schedule a CXTMS demo and see how CXTMS helps shippers manage cost, compliance, and risk in one transportation workflow.