If you own a business with multiple vehicles in use daily, you might consider purchasing a fleet truck insurance policy. Some companies require a minimum of five vehicles to be considered a fleet, but others extend the policy parameters to include those companies that only have two or three vehicles in use. Having a discussion with your commercial insurance agent or broker can help determine if you need to purchase fleet insurance. Meanwhile, continue reading to learn more about fleet truck insurance.
- 5 best fleet truck insurance companies
- What is fleet truck insurance?
- How does fleet truck insurance work?
- How much does fleet truck insurance cost?
- How much does small fleet truck insurance cost?
- How much does large fleet truck insurance cost?
- What factors affect fleet truck insurance cost?
- How to find cheap fleet truck insurance
5 best fleet truck insurance companies
- The Hartford: Best Overall for small and large fleets
- Progressive: Best for fast online quotes
- Nationwide: Best for stellar reputation
- Commercialinsurance.net: Best for small fleets
- Simply Business: Best for comparing quotes
The Hartford: Best Overall for small or large fleets
For a company that began as a fire insurance company, the Hartford certainly has made a name for itself in the commercial truck insurance industry. The Hartford offers programs that are specifically designed to cover fleets. The company provides coverage in all 50 states, and the company admits it prefers to write commercial auto policies for multi-truck businesses.
With its rich experience in underwriting truck operation, the Hartford builds its policy to be fully customizable for fleets of different sizes. Whether you run a fleet of 5 or 35 trucks, the Hartford has a customizable solution for you.
Progressive: Best for fast online quotes
Progressive is well-known for providing insurance for a variety of situations. We’ve all seen the advertisements where they talk about bundling policies to save money. Those types of discounts extend to the commercial auto part of the Progressive business model. They offer customizable coverage and discounts for multiple situations, including bundling your commercial truck insurance with other business or personal insurance policies.
Progress is the market leader in commercial truck insurance industry. They underwrite trucking insurance policies for trucking businesses of all sizes, whether you are an owner operator with just one truck, or running a small fleet of 5 trucks, or a large fleet of 30 trucks, Progressive can provide your with the right coverages.
The one thing that Progressive stands out is that they are the only carrier offering truck insurance quotes online. It is super fast and simple. Within 10 minutes, you’ll have a quote to start your buying journey. Even you are not sure if Progressive is the right carrier for you, it is still worth getting a fast quote online from them.
Nationwide: Best for a stellar reputation
Nationwide is one of the most recognizable names in the auto insurance industry. That’s probably because it’s also one of the oldest. The company has been in business since 1926 and has grown to have offices around the country with over 30,000 employees. Nationwide offers commercial truck insurance, but it doesn’t cover semi-trucks or tractor-trailers.
If you want to get insurance from a trusted name in the industry, you may want to consider Nationwide. However, if you run a fleet of semi truck or tractor-trailers, you can consider these top provides:
Commercialinsurance.net: Best for small fleets
Commercialinsurance.net is another insurance broker that specializes in helping small businesses with their insurance needs, including trucking business. In fact, trucking business is one of their focused industries. If you have questions regarding the kind of policies you need, commercialinsurance.net has you covered. The company offers articles designed to help business owners understand the differences between the policies the company has to offer.
Commercialinsurance.net and their agents specialize in small fleets, especially if you are new to trucking industry. They are every knowledgeable about the natures and potential issues of new and small fleet operation and can help you navigate the trucking insurance landscape to find the best coverages at the most affordable prices.
Simply Business: Best for comparing quotes
Simply Business is an insurance broker specializing in small businesses, including trucking businesses. The company is owned by Travelers Insurance. As a broker, Simply Business works with several trucking insurance companies and helps you get and compare several quotes in one place conveniently.
Whether you are running a small fleet or large fleet, working with Simply Business makes it easy and simple to gather quotes and compare to select the cheapest one for your business.
Simply Business earns a good satisfaction rating from their customers. They earn a A on BBB and 4.1 out of 5 on Trustpilot.
What is fleet truck insurance?
Fleet truck insurance is commercial truck insurance that provides coverage for companies that have more than one truck in operation. The coverage is basically the same as that for single commercial trucks, but the price is typically discounted when the trucks are part of a fleet. Usually, a fleet is five or more trucks, but some insurance companies will write a fleet policy as long as you have at least two trucks running for your company.
How does fleet truck insurance work?
Fleet insurance covers all of the vehicles in a fleet under one policy, even if they aren’t all the same kind of vehicle. For example, if you were a caterer and you had two box trucks and three vans, that would be a fleet of vehicles. The coverage offered with these policies isn’t impacted by the number of drivers you have as long as all of the drivers carry the proper licensing to operate the vehicles.
Fleet insurance is divided into two basic categories:
- Small fleets: sometimes referred to as mini fleets, these companies only have a handful of vehicles they use for their daily business operations. Think your local florist. The three delivery vehicles they have can be considered a fleet by some insurance companies; some companies set the minimum number of vehicles at five to constitute a fleet.
- Large fleets: these companies sometimes have thousands of vehicles in use daily. Consider your local cable television provider. They are likely part of a large company with trucks in various areas. That is an example of a large fleet.
How much does fleet truck insurance cost?
Based on our research, the average fleet truck insurance is around $7,000 per truck per year, or $585 per truck per month. The average fleet truck insurance cost per truck is a bit more for a small fleet than a large fleet. It is like you get some volume discount when you have more trucks.
Like insurance for a single commercial truck, the cost of fleet truck insurance varies based on several factors that we discussed below.
This is just the average cost. You quotes and rates will be different. Be sure to shop around with a few companies or work with a top broker like Simply Business or Commercialinsurance.net to get and compare several quotes before making your final decision. You should also get a fast quote online on Progressive website. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes and it will give you a good idea of the ballpark of your fleet truck insurance cost.
How much does small fleet insurance cost?
We study a real example of a small fleet of 6 trucks with traveling radius of 280 miles, with 4 years of experience, hauling container, the trucks and trailers valued at $150,000, and have no claims in the past 3 years. The cost of fleet truck insurance for this operation comes out to be $44,500 per year.
For the small fleet above, the average truck insurance cost is $7,420 per year per truck or $620 per month per truck in the fleet.
Again, this is just one example. Your own quote will be different. Be sure to shop around or work with a top broker to compare several quote to choose the cheapest one for your operation.
How much does large fleet insurance cost?
We study another real example of large fleet of 22 trucks, with unlimited traveling radius, with 6 years of experience, hauling building materials, the trucks and trailers valued at $700,000, and with 3 claims in the past 3 years, the fleet truck insurance cost of this operation is $146,500 per year.
For the large fleet above, the average truck insurance cost is $6,660 per year per truck, or $555 per month per truck in the fleet.
Again, this is just another example. Your own quote will be different. Be sure to shop around with a few companies or work with a top broker like Simply Business or Commercialinsurance.net to compare several quotes to find the cheapest one for you.
What factors affect fleet insurance cost?
Many factors affect fleet insurance cost. Below are a few important ones:
- How many and what type of trucks are in your fleet.
- What you transport—some cargos are riskier than others. Hazardous materials, for example, are at higher risk than a truckload of pillows and, therefore, will cost more to insure.
- How far do you drive? Are you a delivery driver who remains in a small local area, or do you travel nationwide?
- Your home state. While there are federal regulations in place for some parts of the trucking industry, each state has the right to institute its own insurance rules for commercial vehicles.
- Your driving history and the driving record of the other drivers in your company.
- How long have you been driving a truck? If you’ve recently gotten your CDL and are just starting to drive, you’ll likely be considered high risk due to lack of experience, which could make premiums higher if you can get someone to write a policy for you.
- Do you run under your own authority?
How to find cheap fleet truck insurance
Below are a few practical tips to find cheap fleet truck insurance:
Compare quotes
The number one rule to find cheap fleet truck insurance is to shop around with a few companies or work with a top broker like Simply Business or Commercialinsurance.net to compare several quotes to find the cheapest one for you. Don’t settle on the first quote you receive. You will leave money on the table.
Hire good drivers
Driving records of your truck drivers play a big role in determining the fleet truck insurance cost. If possible, make sure to hire drivers with good driving records. If you have drivers with violations on their records, have a plan to work through and remove these violations from the record as quickly as possible.
Safety-first trucking operations
You never emphasize enough to your drivers and your entire trucking business operation that safety is the first priority. Make sure you have procedures and processes in place to ensure that your drivers follow and comply with all safety practices and you are able to detect their violations immediately to correct them before it is too late.
Final thoughts
Like private auto insurance, fleet truck insurance is designed to protect you and everyone else on the road. It’s a form of a commercial auto policy that covers multiple vehicles under one policy. Having one policy for your entire fleet can save you money versus purchasing policies for each vehicle individually.
As with other commercial auto policies, several factors dictate the actual cost of your insurance policy. It’s a good idea to shop for multiple quotes when shopping for commercial insurance, so we provided you with information on five insurance companies to get you started. Contact your commercial insurance agent or broker to learn more about fleet truck insurance, its costs, benefits, and whether or not it’s the correct choice for you and your business.
