Semi truck insurance

What an 18 wheeler insurance policy has to cover

Start with liability. According to Progressive Commercial, it's the basic coverage any truck operator must have to stay legal on the road. It splits into 2 parts, one for property damage and one for bodily injury, with a separate required amount for each.

• Property damage liability covers the cost when you damage someone else's property in a crash that's your fault. That includes other vehicles, along with property like mailboxes, garage doors, and storefronts.
• Bodily injury liability takes care of medical bills, rehabilitation, and lost wages for people you hurt in an accident you caused. It also handles legal fees and settlements if someone sues you.

A for-hire carrier is any driver or business that gets paid to move freight owned by somebody else. For-hire truckers operating under their own authority have to carry bodily injury coverage. Authority means the federal go-ahead to run your own trucking company and book paying loads.

Federal liability minimums by load

How much you have to carry comes down to the truck's weight rating and the freight you're hauling. These limits are set by federal rules and the FMCSA.

Hauling only within a single state means that state's minimum applies. Your insurer will often file a Form E with the state as proof of coverage.

Coverage for your own truck

Liability covers what happens to other people, not to your truck. Physical damage insurance bundles 3 kinds of protection for your own semi:

• Collision covers crash damage, even in single-vehicle accidents like a rollover.
• Comprehensive pays for damage from the usual causes that aren't crashes.
• Fire and theft also handles common non-crash damage, though its specifics aren't the same as comprehensive.

Coverage for cargo, trailers, and downtime

The freight in your trailer, not the rig itself, is what motor truck cargo insurance protects. It can pay costs when a shipment gets damaged or goes missing in a covered event. Spoilage from temperature swings isn't covered by every cargo policy, so reefer drivers should request refrigeration breakdown coverage.

Trailer interchange covers a trailer you're pulling that belongs to someone else, working a lot like collision and comprehensive. Trailer-owning clients frequently insist on it.

Rental reimbursement with downtime covers the cost of a substitute truck when yours is damaged in a covered event. When there's no replacement truck available, it can help replace the income you lose while sidelined.

Semi truck insurance cost

The average monthly cost at Progressive Commercial for commercial truck insurance runs $734 to $926, varying by the kind of for-hire trucking you do. What you actually pay depends on your home base, which coverages you pick, your limits, your annual mileage, and how risky your line of work is.

For a quote, have ready the truck's make and model, your driver list, and your usual distance from home. You can get a policy quote from an insurance agent once you gather 3 basic details about your operation. According to Progressive Commercial, getting a semi truck and trailer insurance quote can take as little as 8 minutes (once you have your information in front of you).

How does the cost compare across trucker types?

The numbers below reflect national averages for commercial auto insurance, meaning your price may land above or below them.

Insurance for owner operators

Your needs hinge on whether you operate under your own authority or a carrier's.

Running under your own authority

You don't send proof of insurance yourself, because your insurer submits it to the FMCSA using Form BMC-91 or BMC-91X. Your policy must also include the MCS-90, a federal add-on to your liability policy that the FMCSA requires. Deadlines count here. After your authority application gets published, your insurer has 20 days to file, otherwise the application gets dismissed.

More costs and filings tied to having your own authority:

• Operating authority: one-time $300 fee
• UCR registration (2027): $55 if you run 0 to 2 trucks
• BOC-3 form, which names your process agents: a process agent files it, listing every state where you operate
• Protest period: 10 days once the application is published

What do brokers ask for?

J.B. Hunt notes the $750,000 federal minimum, but plenty of brokers expect more before they'll offer you loads.

Broker	Auto liability	Cargo coverage
Amazon Relay	$1,000,000 each occurrence	$100,000 in cargo coverage
Uber Freight	$1,000,000	$100,000
TQL	$1,000,000	$100,000
C.H. Robinson	$1,000,000	$100,000

Leased on to a carrier

Leasing on means putting your truck under a carrier's control and running on its authority. By law, the lease must give that carrier complete possession and use of the truck for as long as the lease lasts. While you're under the carrier's dispatch, its filing covers you. On your end, you still carry non-trucking liability, also called bobtail, plus physical damage on the truck itself.

Frequently asked questions