Tips for Lowering Your Commercial Trucking Insurance Premiums

Commercial trucking insurance policies are a costly expense for most fleet owners. Unfortunately, you can’t cut them off your budget. However, understanding what insurers look for when determining your premiums can help you find ways to reduce them. Discussed below are six tips for lowering your commercial trucking insurance premiums, including using a fleet dash cam.

1. Use fleet dash cam systems

Driver monitoring is one of the greatest challenges fleet managers face. Managers can track harsh braking and acceleration, speeding, rolling stops, hard turning, and close following thanks to the fleet dash cam solution. The dual-facing dash cam can capture unsafe behavior, including distracted driving, mobile phone use, and lane departure, to implement coaching and maximize road safety. This makes driver coaching more effective, developing safe driving habits.

When an unsafe incident occurs, the saved video evidence can be retrieved to disprove false claims, protecting your business reputation and saving your insurance premiums. Fleet dash cam systems can help you improve your drivers’ driving skills, promote road safety, and protect your fleet, earning you lower insurance premiums.

2. Map out your trucking routes

Trucking routes significantly impact your commercial trucking insurance premiums. To lower your insurance premiums, wisely plan your trucking routes by ensuring low-risk levels. High traffic, population density, and inclement weather frequency affect the risk level of a given route. Driving across metro centers, mainly when delivering to high-end business centers, might be unavoidable, but you should look for the safest routes when driving through such areas.

3. Ensure a clean driving record

Commercial trucking organizations should ensure clean DOT (Department of Transportation) records free from incidents that may negatively impact their insurance premiums. Regularly monitoring your record and rating is an excellent practice that helps you ensure your drivers’ record accurately reflects their driving history.

Any unpaid fines your drivers forgot about are usually recorded on the Safety and Fitness Electronic Records System website. Visiting this site will help you access your fleet safety rating record. Most insurers will use the DOT rating to determine your commercial insurance policy. Keep a clean driving record to lower your premiums.

4. Use newer trucks

When calculating your insurance premiums, insurers always consider your trucks’ condition, value, age, and the risk they pose to your drivers, other road users, and your company. Your maintenance rate and new truck equipment installation also impact the premium-rate calculation. Go for a newer truck, at least ten years old or newer. Ensure they have the latest equipment, including accident-avoidance technologies, to get affordable premiums.

5. Leverage higher deductibles

Increasing your deductibles isn’t always easy, but it’s a great way to reduce your insurance premiums. Nonetheless, you should be prepared to cover higher upfront costs if an accident occurs. If you choose this route, pick a deductible your trucking company can afford without being burdened. Consult a commercial trucking insurance agent for a policy review to determine the best alternative for lowering your insurance premiums.

6. Verify driver employment history

Drivers who constantly change employment don’t trigger confidence with insurers. Those who serve for more extended periods with fewer companies are seen as more stable and have cleaner histories with lesser employment gaps to review. This also speaks of their experience and cautiousness on the road.

Endnote

Trucking insurance policies can be costly, but using these tips can help lower your commercial trucking insurance premiums.