ATRI’s 2024 Top Trucking Industry Issues Report cited insurance cost and availability as number four (4) in the list of top ten (10) trucking industry issues overall. Since 2021, ATRI research has documented continuing increases in truck insurance premiums paid by motor carriers. The increase in premiums is driven in part by the losses incurred by insurers resulting from excessive litigation.

While excessive jury accident judgements are driving up insurance costs, the hard facts reported by Fleet-Connection (www.fleet-connection.com) commercial trucking accident data reveals that reportable accident frequency for the commercial truck population has trended up from 2019 (pre-Covid) to 2022 (post-Covid). Simply put “excessive jury settlements” are a non-starter if there were no accidents or fewer accidents in the first place. This is not to say that accidents will not happen, they will, but fewer the accidents and its severity for a fleet versus industry average fleet, the better chance it stands to beat back continuous year over year rising insurance costs.

The Insurance Problem

The trucking industry expends $14 billion annually in safety improvements, including investments in technology and training. Despite this heavy spend, insurance costs keep rising each year.

Why is that the case? While “nuclear” jury verdicts are a factor, the root cause is that existing effective risk management practices and solutions are fragmented in their application with each fragmented solution presented as the “silver bullet” and which it is not – first it was telematics, collision avoidance and lane change technologies, then came dashcams in the cab and now AI application is the new “mantra”.

Common Sense Fleet Accident and Claims Reduction Framework

 The whole “ballgame” of reducing trucking company insurance costs is managing accident frequency and severity AKA loss ratio better than same size fleets hauling the same cargo type. This includes, equally importantly, proactively communicating data driven facts to your insurance company.

Beyond the implementation of telematics, dashcams, trucking companies need to take a holistic approach that meets both insurance standards and operational efficiency goals. By focusing on comprehensive driver training, proactive maintenance and data-driven risk management , carriers can position themselves favorably with insurers while optimizing fleet performance.

Some risk situations that typically are seemingly beyond a fleet’s control can and need to be managed e.g., certain geographic locations in the U.S. create increased risk, and knowing where these are can help fleets avoid the exposure that comes with them. Using Route Scores help fleets identify risk factors in the lanes they travel and uncover opportunities to mitigate that risk, helping them to not only keep their drivers, equipment, and cargo safer but also keep costs down.

Best operating practices, workflow automation and BI technologies exist today to deliver superior integrated solutions for the following functions:

• A strong driver pool is critical to maintaining consistent insurance rates. It is one of the key factors use in assessing fleet risk. It begins with hiring the right type of driver, training, driver retention and managing drivers using data driven risk performance metrics
• Proactive tractor and trailer maintenance and repair. Use risk plus economic data to make equipment replacement decisions
• Apply best practices to handle and haul each type of cargo in a safe manner
• Reduce risk by using route scores data to identify risk factors to uncover alternative route including time of day opportunities to mitigate that risk

To effectively reduce accidents, claims and accrue insurance costs better than competition, trucking companies need solutions that seamlessly integrate data and insights across all the above-mentioned functions in one easy to use platform. Such a platform must deliver customer configurable solutions, with data-driven fluid 2-way feedback loops and insights between driver hiring, driver behavior incidents, accidents, claims and loss ratios.

Technology Solutions for Accident and Severity Reduction Work

It takes a combination of several real-time integrated technology solutions provided by a responsive TMS platform like EKA Omni-TMS™ along with other key solution partners like Lockton, Fleet-Connection, Tenstreet, telematics and camera system solutions providers like Samsara, Motive and Geotab and route scoring services to deliver the most automated, customer configurable and robust end-to-end risk reduction technology solutions in a single easy to use platform by companies regardless of size.

EKA ‘s People-First TMS platform fluidly melds automated driver hiring, most comprehensive behavior score carding, equipment maintenance, accident, claims and loss ratio reduction and route risk reduction scoring data and solutions with its superior load planning, execution, routing visibility, reporting and BI tools. This fusion enables fleets to lower level of accident risk and severity, and fully comply with FMSCSA requirements.

EKA is fully committed to rapidly develop and implement solutions with its expanding list of Alliance and Integration partners to provide “forward-leaning” and “best-in-class” accident/severity reduction, lowest claims and loss ratio, and safety compliance solutions, all in one. That said the best technology solutions by itself are not the “magic bullet”, quality of fleet results depend on how motivated and effective fleet management is in utilizing risk reduction solutions to accrue its full potential.