Owner operator insurance

What can a policy include?

According to Progressive Commercial, a truck policy protects you from accidents, truck damage, breakdowns, and cargo loss. The policy is built from several separate coverages, and you pick the ones your situation calls for.

• Liability: pays for harm and property damage you cause to others. Federal rules make this coverage mandatory.
• Physical damage: covers fixing or replacing your truck following an accident, and also covers theft and natural disasters, with no distance limit, according to Progressive's non-trucking liability page.
• Motor truck cargo: pays when the freight you're hauling is lost or damaged.
• Motor truck general liability: pays for injuries or damage arising from business activity that doesn't involve the truck.
• Trailer interchange: protects you when a trailer belonging to someone else is damaged while you haul it under an interchange agreement, meaning a written arrangement to exchange trailers with another carrier.

This kind of insurance is for independent contractors, freelance drivers, and truckers who are self-employed. If you run under your own authority, you need to arrange your own liability coverage, while physical damage, cargo and general liability cover other risks, and trailer interchange applies if you use other people's trailers under an interchange agreement. Authority is the government's approval letting you carry freight for hire in your own business name.

How much liability do you need?

How much liability you must carry depends on your freight and your truck's weight rating. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sets these limits, and they apply to for-hire carriers hauling between states.

Proof of this coverage goes to the federal agency from your insurance company, not from you. Once your authority application is published, the insurer gets 20 days to file it; miss that window and the authority request gets thrown out. When your hauling stays within a single state, that state sets the minimum and the filing, often a Form E from your insurer.

Many brokers ask for more than the legal minimum. Below are the requirements some of the biggest brokers publish for carriers.

Broker	Liability coverage	Cargo coverage
C.H. Robinson	$1 million	$100,000
TQL	$1 million	$100,000
Uber Freight	$1 million	$100,000
Amazon Relay	$1 million per occurrence	$100,000
J.B. Hunt	Federal minimum of $750,000	None set federally

On top of that, Amazon Relay and Uber Freight each call for $1 million of general liability coverage as well.

Insurance when you're leased on

With a permanent lease, the motor carrier typically carries your primary liability insurance. The carrier's primary liability coverage applies while you're under dispatch, so check the policy and lease for its terms. That lease has to spell out the carrier's obligation to keep this coverage in place, and it must identify who provides any other insurance on the truck.

That liability policy from the carrier won't pay to fix your own truck. Physical damage coverage is still on you, to repair or replace the truck after a crash or theft. That gap remains until you add physical damage, even when you already carry non-trucking liability.

Non-trucking liability applies when you're using the truck for personal, non-business driving. Many carriers make it a condition of the lease. It covers medical bills from injuries, damage to another person's vehicle or property, and legal expenses like lawyer bills and court fees, as Progressive explains.

There are some limits worth knowing:

• It won't cover accidents that happen while you're under dispatch.
• You can't qualify while you're currently driving a truck for another company.
• Bobtail and deadhead coverage aren't always included.

Bobtail insurance is for operating the truck without any trailer. Deadhead insurance is for driving with an empty trailer. Since these aren't always included in non-trucking liability, look at your lease to see which ones it requires.

What it costs

What you pay comes down to 4 things: the kind of business you run, the truck itself, your record behind the wheel, and your home base. Those same factors also determine what non-trucking liability costs.

Trucker category	Typical monthly cost
Specialty truckers (Progressive nationwide average)	$734
Transport truckers (Progressive nationwide average)	$926
Hotshot truckers, commercial auto coverage	$896 ($10,757 a year)
Hotshot operations, general liability alone	$32

When you're leased on, plenty of carriers will sell you physical damage and non-trucking liability through their own programs. Getting these coverages yourself is often cheaper, according to Progressive.

Questions drivers ask