Article Summary
Rising commercial trucking insurance rates outpaced inflation in 2025, narrowing the cost advantage of mega-fleets and driving carriers toward alternative risk financing.
- Premium spike: Commercial truck insurance premiums rose nearly 4% to 10.6 cents per mile in 2025, outpacing consumer inflation by 1.2 percentage points and ranking as the industry’s No. 3 concern.
- Safety vs. cost paradox: Premium increases occurred despite significant safety improvements, including a 15.3% drop in injury crash rates and a 13.9% decline in fatal crash rates compared to 2019 peaks.
- Litigation pressure: The commercial auto insurance segment remains largely unprofitable due to ballooning litigation payouts, with the most expensive trucking legal awards rising at an average rate of 5.7% annually.
- Risk shifting: To combat rising premium renewals and protect profit margins, motor carriers are increasingly adopting safety technologies and absorbing higher deductibles or self-insurance.
Insurance cost and availability was motor carriers' No. 3 concern last year, according to ATRI’s 21st annual Top Industry Issues report, and for good reason: Commercial truck insurance premiums jumped almost 4% to 10.6 cents per mile in 2025, even as truck-involved crash rates declined.
Truck insurance premiums — a fleet's fourth-largest vehicle-related expense behind fuel, truck/trailer payments, and maintenance and repair — have hovered at about a dime per mile for the last three years, and have increased 2 cents per mile since 2020.
"Though the marginal cost increase appears small (year-over-year), the percentage increases are not," said ATRI Senior Research Associate Alex Leslie. "A 3.9% increase this year is more than a point more than overall inflation. A half-cent every mile adds up."
What may seem like pricing stability over the last three years has more to do with motor carriers retaining more risk in the form of higher deductibles and/or self-insurance, which can offset increases in premium costs, according to Chad Krueger, vice president and managing director of Risk Intelligence at Central Analysis Bureau (CAB).
"Anecdotally, it seems that motor carriers are taking on more risk via higher deductibles or self-insurance," Krueger said. "Additionally, the trend toward captives and other alternative risk financing mechanisms could be keeping that in check as well."
Even when not cutting coverage outright, Leslie said, many fleets are keeping the same total coverage limits while increasing their mileage. "Same protection for more exposure," he said. "It's like 'shrinkflation' for groceries."
The findings, published in the 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, show that the rising cost of liability and cargo insurance premiums outpaced consumer inflation by 1.2 percentage points — cost inflation that occurred despite ongoing safety improvements by motor carriers. Federal data indicates that injury crash rates were 15.3% lower and fatal crash rates were 13.9% lower in 2024 compared to their 2019 peaks.
According to the report, the commercial auto segment of the insurance industry has remained unprofitable in nine of the last 10 years, driven primarily by escalating per-crash expenses and ballooning litigation payouts. The most expensive half of litigation awards in the trucking industry has risen at an average rate of 5.7% per year.
The insurance burden varied significantly by fleet size and type. In the truckload sector, larger fleets saw their typical cost advantages erode slightly in 2025 due to rising premium costs for secondary coverage levels over $5 million. While the cost difference between medium fleets (26 to 100 trucks) and mega-fleets (over 1,000 trucks) was 4.8 cents per mile in 2024, that gap narrowed to 3.1 cents per mile in 2025.
Premium costs represent only one fraction of a carrier's total cost of risk, which also includes deductibles, self-insurance payments, and litigation expenses. Large fleets with more than 1,000 trucks spent an average of 5.4 cents per mile on out-of-pocket costs and 3.6 cents per mile on litigation expenses alone. Plaintiffs frequently target larger carriers with higher settlement demands, forcing those companies to invest heavily in legal defense.
Early data from the first quarter of 2026 indicates premium costs are continuing to climb, up an average of 3.9%. However, premium increases for renewals showed signs of moderation, decelerating from a 10.4% rate to 5.8%. To mitigate these pressures, carriers are increasingly adopting safety technologies and retaining a greater share of primary risk up to $10 million, which ATRI research shows can lower the total cost of risk over time.
