Having a proper insurance in difficult situations can literally save your company. Any time invested in this part of a trucking business is useful and cost saving in the future.
A challenging aspect of doing business with insurance companies is being required to go through an agent. In the future, perhaps there will be a company that will disrupt the market and connect companies with insurance companies directly. There have been some attempts to do this, but at this early stage, none are worth highlighting. There are a few tips and tricks you can use to lower your insurance prices.
Prior to the annual renewal of your insurance policy, obtain multiple offers from different agents. Price differences can be astonishing when you have agents involved in a bidding war. This will likely be the only opportunity you will have to see substantially lower prices.
An Illinois-based company could easily pay a monthly insurance rate of $1,200 a month for a Class A truck. This is high price that would certainly affect a trucking company’s profitability. Obtaining offers from multiple agents, in my experience, can lower this price on average by 20% or more.
For a fleet of 10 trucks, this is a major savings of around $20,000 annually. Trucking company owners should obtain offers from at least 3 other agents when it comes time for policy renewal.
Be careful not to be drawn into a personal connection with your existing agent — he/she is there to give you the best possible service and price on the market. This tactic has saved my company around $200 monthly per truck.
The downside is that you cannot use this tactic immediately; you can be prepared for when the opportunity arises and ultimately save your company a significant amount of money on insurance.
Upholding an optimal safety record is one of the most crucial actions a company can take to have a best truck insurance price. Usually companies fail at monitoring their safety record because of a lack of focus. There are many factors you need to keep in mind when running a company in order to maintain 100% control.
Usually an intense workload and everyday situations in a company cause fleet managers or trucking company owners to overlook certain situations, such as a driver getting a speeding ticket or an hours of service (HOS) violation.
Multiply that by 10 trucks in an average fleet in the U.S., and you can ruin a great safety record you built for years in less than a year. As you know, in order to remove a poor safety record, you need to have 10 good inspections. Let’s face it, only few companies would be able to accomplish this with ease.
This is the reason positive safety records need to be among every company’s top priorities. Poor ratings can hurt businesses, cause insurance to be cancelled, and lead to bankruptcy. Feel free to share you experience with buying or leasing a truck with us and what is your opinion on this matter.
