Avoid Costly Mistakes: Your Guide to the Best Trucking Insurance Agent

By Jeff Blichfeldt

Are you wondering how to find the best agent for your trucking company? I’m Jeff with Inspirion Trucking Services, and today we’re going to talk about some tips to find the best agent for your trucking company. The first step to getting lower insurance rates for your trucking is to find the right agent.

#1 Agent with Trucking Insurance Experience:

You need an agent with experience in trucking insurance. Yes, you can go to a lot of auto, home, and small commercial riders, and they probably have access to a few carriers that will do trucking. But the problem is, will they do it correctly? Will they give you everything that you need? All the coverages, the D O T filings, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve run across a client who has a quote and they’re upset because they went with a standard carrier that gave them a great policy, great quote, but now they can’t get the D O T filing. Or you get your auto liability and you get your physical damage, but there’s no motor truck cargo. So, there’s a lot of little pieces of the puzzle that are important that if you’re not in trucking insurance, you probably don’t know, and it can cause problems for you down the road.  You definitely want to find an agent that has experience in trucking.

#2 Agent that is Responsive:

The other thing is you need an agent that is responsive. If he or she’s not very responsive during the quoting phase, then there’s a good chance they might not be very responsive when you need them for service work. And in trucking, there tends to be a lot of service. There tends to be a lot of adding drivers, removing drivers, adding vehicles, removing vehicles, certificates, certificates are coming through all the time for just about every job you get. So, it’s really important that you have an agent that’s responsive, calls you back quickly, gets you what you need quickly is on top of all the endorsements and changes and things like that.

#3 Defined Processes:

You need to find an agent that has a process that makes it easier for you. It needs to be clearly defined process like a timeline of services.  These are the things that we’re going to do for you throughout the course of the year, and we know what we’re going to do and when we’re going to do it. So you know what to expect, including your renewal. When is the renewal going to start? Do you want your renewal coming through at the last minute and you don’t have a chance to look at it and think about it? Or maybe even remarket it if you don’t like the premium? Or is it coming in the very last minute and you’re just stuck? It is what it is. What’s the process for loss runs? What’s the process for onboarding? When you start with a new agent, are they giving you a clear to process that explains, this is how we do things, this is how we process changes. This is who does it, this is how long they take.  This is how the billing works, this is how you make your payments, these processes are clearly defined.  Is the agent giving you a support team to work with so if that agent’s on vacation, or needs a day off, or anything, there’s always some support staff there to help just in case you need something.  Who are those people and how do you get ahold of them? The endorsement process. What is the process when they need to make a change? If I want to add a truck, remove a trailer, add a driver, or need a certificate. What are these processes? The certificate process, is that clearly defined? How long do I need to wait to get a certificate? With our agency, our expectation is that we’re going to return the certificates to you within 30 minutes. And on top of that, we have an automated certificate process so that if it’s the middle of the night or early in the morning, or the weekend, sometime when the office is closed, you can go on as a trucking client and you can print your own certificate in less than a minute.  We have these processes in place. That way you’re never stuck waiting or possibly losing a job because you can’t get a certificate.

#4 Trucking Agent with Proven Track Record:

You need an agent with a proven track record. It can be Google Reviews, it can be testimonials, or maybe it’s a referral from another trucking company.  An agent that can show you they’ve got some recent victories, that they have experience in the trucking industry, and that they understand the ins and outs of it.  These are some of the best ways to find a good agent. You might interview five agents. Ask them questions, get comfortable, make sure that they go through all the things mentioned above in the beginning. Are they experienced in trucking insurance? Are they responsive? Do they get back to you quickly? Do they have a process, a process for all the things that happen? Do they have a support team.  Do they have access to the carriers?  If you are talking to an auto and home agent, they might have access to one carrier. And so that’s really not good for you. It could be, but most chances you want to make sure you’ve got at least a couple of options.

Once you’ve interviewed the agent, you’re comfortable with the agent, let them go out and work with the companies and do the negotiations to get you best rate. If you do these things, you’re going to find that you have a better agent, more responsive, get things done quicker and more easily, and you’re going to get better rates overall.

Hopefully this information was helpful. Contact our team and talk to a Trucking Expert today for more information.