Transportation Insurance

Transportation business insurance refers to a tailored bundle of commercial coverage specific to this general industry including areas like trucking, couriers, movers and any other company offering the service of moving things from place to place. It provides the most important financial protection against accidents, vehicle damage, cargo loss, and liability claims that can arise during transit, often including these coverages:

• Commercial auto insurance: Covers you for liabilities caused by and property damage to your vehicles
• Cargo insurance: Covers the property that you are transporting up to a specific dollar amount
• General liability insurance: Covers you bodily injury, customer property not related to your transport vehicle's operations and any damages related to false advertising and lawsuit.
• Workers comp insurance: Protects your company for any injuries and damages to employees while on the job transporting goods or hauling.

Many components of this coverage are required for transport operations and keeps your business, vehicles, drivers, and customers protected from the most common damages.

For the most common types of transportation insurance coverage, pricing ranges anywhere from $33 per month to as high as $2,391 monthly. However, your pricing will depend widely on your particular transport related industry, business size, location/s you operate in and vehicles you are insuring. Below we've summarized average transportation business insurance costs for most companies:

For all transportation related businesses, you'll need or be required to have commercial auto/truck ($1 million CSL common), cargo (dependent on clients), general liability ($1 million per occurrence and $2 million per year) and workers comp (state set) insurance policies. Though depending on your operation, you may need the following additional transport insurance coverages:

• Reefer breakdown coverage: This insurance is needed if you have cargo that can spoil and covers you in cases of mechanical or electrical breakdown of refrigeration units during transport, often being required by shippers.
• Hazmat/pollution liability coverage: If you carry dangerous substances, this transport insurance is required and covers pollution, cleanup costs, and environmental damage related to your operations.
• Oversize/overweight load insurance: Carrying heavy equipment, construction materials, houses or other oversize/overweight goods necessitates this insurance coverage.
• Trailer interchange insurance: This type of transportation insurance is contractually required for interchange agreements, covering you for any damage to non-owned equipment in their possession.
• Freight broker bonds/trust: Required if you are a freight broker with at least $75,000 of coverage necessary to meet transportation insurance minimums.

Specialized coverages for cargo or higher limits for the transport insurance type may also be needed depending on the types of goods transported and their value. For example, if you carry household goods you are required to have at least $10,000 of coverage or if you transport cannabis, you need specialized a specialized cargo plan.

In our study of transportation insurance providers, The Hartford came out on top as the best business insurer with the highest rating customer experience and lowest rates. Progressive Commercial comes in as a close second due to their specialized coverages and telematics discounts for transportation clients that competitors don't have. NEXT comes in as our third pick for transport service insurance, particularly smaller operations with less than 4 employees due to their fast and seamless process for buying and management completely online (under 10 minutes) and generally low prices.

The included coverages in transportation service insurance keep you protected from the most common risks in the industry and The Hartford, Progressive and NEXT offer the best options. While these are our top three recommendations, we recommend doing your due diligence to determine your business's specific needs, researching costs, and comparing plenty of providers before making a decision.