How much does commercial auto insurance cost?

When a personal auto policy stops covering the vehicle

The standard ISO personal auto policy was written for households, and its exclusions mark where business use begins. In the 1994 edition still on file with Maine’s insurance bureau, it excludes a vehicle “being used as a public or livery conveyance”. It also excludes using a vehicle while the insured is “engaged in any business”, but makes an exception for private passenger cars and for pickups and vans the insured owns⁠³. A pickup or van bought mid-term becomes a covered auto (if you ask the insurer within 30 days) only if it weighs under 10,000 lb and is not used to deliver goods or materials, unless that use is incidental to installing, maintaining or repairing furnishings or equipment, or is for farming or ranching⁠³. A delivery van, a box truck, a tow truck or anything hauling for others therefore belongs on a commercial policy. Insurers use different editions and their own forms, so the exclusions in your own personal auto policy are the ones that apply.

The commercial form differs in three ways that affect price:

1. It insures the business, not a household

   Anyone using a covered vehicle you own, hire or borrow with your permission is an insured under CA 00 01, so every employee who drives is part of the risk the underwriter prices⁠⁴.

2. You choose which vehicles are covered with numbered symbols

   In the ISO Business Auto Coverage Form CA 00 01 (2013 edition), symbol 1 is “any auto”, 2 is owned autos only, 7 is only the vehicles listed on the declarations, 8 is hired autos and 9 is non-owned autos, such as employees’ cars used on your errands⁠⁴. With symbols 1 to 6, a vehicle you buy mid-term is covered automatically. With symbol 7 it is covered only if you already insure every vehicle you own for that coverage (or it replaces one that was insured) and you tell the insurer within 30 days⁠⁴. Symbol 1 promises more than symbol 7: it reaches any vehicle you use, owned or not.

3. Hired and non-owned exposure can be bought alone

   A business with no vehicles of its own can buy symbols 8 and 9 only; see hired and non-owned auto.

What insurers report per vehicle

No government agency publishes what businesses pay for commercial auto per vehicle. The two published sources describe their own customers.

Insurer- and broker-reported figures from each company’s own customers, as published on its website; not a random sample of all businesses. Figures are rounded as published.

Progressive Commercial publishes the most useful breakdown because it states the unit: “2025 new policy premium per power unit for liability and physical damage coverage for policies with no driver violations”⁠¹. A power unit is a vehicle that moves under its own power, so trailers are not counted separately. Insureon’s $245 a month is a median across about 100,000 small businesses, most with fewer than five employees. Its page says “average”, but its method note says the figures use the median⁠². Insureon does not give a per-vehicle figure; its industry figures are described as the cost “for a commercial auto insurance policy”, so they cannot be compared directly with Progressive’s per-vehicle numbers⁠². Insureon’s spread is wide: annual premiums run from under $375 to over $16,000, 40% of customers pay under $200 a month and another 29% pay $200 to $400⁠².

By type of operation

Insurer- and broker-reported figures from each company’s own customers, as published on its website; not a random sample of all businesses. Figures are rounded as published.

Read the median and the average in each row. For business autos, Progressive’s average ($276) is 33% above its median ($207). For tow trucks it is 71% above ($606 against $355). For for-hire transport trucks it is only 13% above ($926 against $821) (our calculations). A wide gap means a minority of expensive policies is pulling the average up. For towing, Progressive says location, towing type and add-ons such as garagekeepers legal liability and on-hook towing all move the premium⁠¹. Progressive also explains why its specialty-truck figure sits below transport trucks: specialty haulers such as log, gravel and garbage trucks carry one type of load, while transport trucks haul varied freight for others⁠¹.

All of Progressive’s figures exclude drivers with violations, so a firm with a speeding ticket or accident on any driver’s record should expect more⁠¹.

By state

Insurer- and broker-reported figures from each company’s own customers, as published on its website; not a random sample of all businesses. Figures are rounded as published.

Among the ten states Insureon lists, medians range from $154 a month in California to $412 in Florida, a factor of 2.7 (our calculation)⁠². Each state’s figure reflects the mix of businesses and vehicles Insureon sells there as well as local claim costs. Insureon attributes the differences to traffic density, crime, hurricane exposure, medical and repair costs, and uninsured drivers⁠².

How an insurer classes and prices each vehicle

The countrywide ISO commercial auto manual is licensed to insurers and not public. Massachusetts publishes its own manual through Commonwealth Automobile Reinsurers (CAR), and its 2026 rules for trucks, tractors and trailers show the mechanics plainly⁠⁵. Insurers in other states file their own rules, so the definitions below are Massachusetts’ wording.

Three rules in that manual explain many surprises on a quote:

1. The highest class wins unless 80% of use is lower

   A truck with mixed use is rated at the use class with the highest factor, and at the longest radius it travels. The only exception is when 80% or more of its operation falls in a single lower class⁠⁵. A contractor’s pickup that makes occasional long runs is rated long distance unless 80% of its driving stays local.

2. Industry adds a secondary factor

   Except for light trucks and zone-rated vehicles, ten special-industry groups, including truckers hauling for others, food delivery, specialized (time-constrained) delivery, waste disposal, dump and transit-mix trucks, contractors and logging, carry their own secondary factor. The manual adds it to the primary factor⁠⁵.

3. Garaging sets the territory

   The rate comes from the territory where the vehicle is principally garaged. Trucks regularly driven beyond 200 miles are zone-rated on the zones they run between⁠⁵.

The premium for liability is then the territory rate for the chosen limit times the combined factor. Collision and other-than-collision (physical damage) cover are rated on the vehicle’s original cost new and age, times the same factor⁠⁵. Insurers layer their own underwriting on top. Progressive and Insureon both list driving records, claims history, limits and deductibles, vehicle type and location. Progressive gives the example that a pickup with a ladder rack and permanently attached toolbox can cost more than a plain one⁠¹⁠².

Driver records

The driving record of every person who will drive is a rating input that the business controls. For interstate motor carriers it is also a legal duty. Under federal safety rules a carrier must request each new driver’s motor vehicle record (MVR) covering the past three years, within 30 days of hiring⁠⁶. It must also obtain and review every driver’s record at least once every 12 months⁠⁷. Those files are what an underwriter asks for at renewal, and Progressive’s published figures assume no violations at all⁠¹.

A worked example

Our illustration, with stated assumptions: a plumbing firm runs three vans of 9,000 lb GVW. They carry staff and tools to jobs within 30 miles of the shop and are parked at job sites during the day. Under the Massachusetts rules each van is light, service use and local radius, and with three vehicles the firm is non-fleet⁠⁵. Using Progressive’s 2025 business-auto median of $207 a month per vehicle as a reference point, three vans come to $621 a month, or $7,452 a year (our calculation)⁠¹. That is a reference, not a quote. Progressive’s median excludes drivers with violations, and the actual price depends on the territory, the limit chosen, physical damage on each van’s value and the firm’s claims.

Federal trucking minimums versus state minimums

Every state sets a minimum liability limit for vehicles registered there. In California it is $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per accident and $15,000 property damage, and the DMV applies it to private passenger, commercial and fleet vehicles alike⁠⁹. The same page warns that it “does not include any additional insurance requirements for commercial and/or fleet vehicles” set by federal, state or local agencies⁠⁹. All 51 state minimums are in the commercial auto minimums table.

Interstate motor carriers fall under a separate federal floor that is far higher:

eCFR up to date as of 2026-10-08; 387.9 last amended 91 FR 45660, July 21, 2026. 49 CFR 387.9, 387.33T.

The $750,000 minimum applies to for-hire carriers of nonhazardous property in vehicles of 10,001 lb or more, and it rises to $1 million or $5 million depending on the hazardous material. Passenger carriers need $1.5 million for vehicles seating 15 or fewer and $5 million for 16 or more⁠⁸. These are minimums. The limit actually bought, and so the premium, is often set by shippers’ and brokers’ contracts rather than by the regulation.

Trucking: the cost per mile

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), a not-for-profit trucking research organization, surveys motor carriers each year on their operating costs. Its July 2026 update puts liability and cargo insurance premiums at $0.106 per mile in 2025, or $4.84 per hour of operation⁠¹⁰.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

That is a 41% rise since 2016 (our calculation: 0.106 ÷ 0.075). ATRI notes that the 3.9% increase in 2025 came while injury-crash rates for heavy trucks in 2024 were 15.3% below their 2019 high⁠¹⁰. Other details from the survey:

• Region. Premiums ranged from $0.098 per mile in the Midwest to $0.120 in the Northeast⁠¹⁰.
• Sector. Less-than-truckload carriers paid $0.056 per mile, the lowest of any group⁠¹⁰.
• Fleet size. In the specialized sectors the three smallest fleet-size groups still had the highest average premium costs. Fleets of more than 1,000 trucks paid 7.6 cents per mile in premium but another 5.4 cents out of pocket in deductibles and self-insured losses⁠¹⁰.
• Latest quarter. Carriers reported premiums per mile up 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026 over 2025⁠¹⁰.

Respondents averaged 85,991 miles per truck in 2025⁠¹⁰. At $0.106 a mile, that is about $9,115 a year, or $760 a month per truck (our calculation). This sits close to Progressive’s $821 median for a for-hire transport truck, a different source measuring a different population⁠¹.

Why the price keeps rising

Commercial auto premiums are still rising at renewal, though more slowly each quarter. In CIAB’s survey of member brokers, average commercial auto renewal premiums rose 6.6% in the fourth quarter of 2025, 5.8% in the first quarter of 2026 and 4.5% in the second. Over the same Q2 2026 quarter, small accounts across all lines fell 0.5%⁠¹¹. The Ivans Index, which compares the same policy year over year using agency transaction data, shows commercial auto up 4.93% in Q2 2026⁠¹². More on these series is on the market trends page.

The reason is in the loss figures that insurers file with regulators. In 2025 U.S. insurers wrote $77.8 billion of commercial auto premium. Across liability and physical damage, losses incurred came to 66.81% of premium earned⁠¹³. Liability alone ran at 71.87%, and 80.33% once defense and cost-containment expenses are added. Personal auto liability came in at 71.65% on the same measure⁠¹³. Those ratios leave little room for an insurer’s own expenses. ATRI cites AM Best’s finding that the commercial auto segment has been unprofitable in all but one of the last ten years⁠¹⁰.

What drives the losses is size of claim, not number of crashes. Two industry studies try to measure it, and both come from the insurance side, so read them as such:

• Swiss Re Institute, the research arm of the reinsurer, estimates that “social inflation” (growth in liability claims costs beyond economic inflation, driven largely by litigation) grew 5.4% a year in the U.S. in 2017-2022, against 3.7% economic inflation. It estimates social inflation added about 7 percentage points to liability claims growth in 2023⁠¹⁴. The study covers liability lines broadly, not commercial auto alone.
• Triple-I and the Casualty Actuarial Society analysed insurers’ annual statement (Schedule P) data. They estimate that what they call “increasing inflation” added $52.0 billion to $70.8 billion to commercial auto liability losses and defense and cost-containment costs from 2015 to 2024, or 22.6% to 30.8% of booked losses. Reported claim frequency fell to 6.9 claims per $100 million of GDP in 2024, against 9.8 in the five pre-pandemic years, while average claim severity rose 93.5% from 2015 to 2024 (7.6% a year, against 3.2% a year for the CPI)⁠¹⁵. The report links part of the increase to lawsuit growth that Triple-I calls “legal system abuse”; Triple-I is a membership organization that, in its own words, “addresses the issues challenging insurers”⁠¹⁶.

ATRI’s own litigation research points the same way: plaintiffs target large fleets with higher demands, and carriers with more than 1,000 trucks spent $0.036 per mile on litigation alone in 2025⁠¹⁰.

What brings the premium down

Each of these levers works through a rating rule or a published finding, not a general promise:

• Classify vehicles correctly. Radius and use are rated at the highest class unless 80% of operation is lower⁠⁵. A log of where each vehicle runs supports a local or service rating.
• Clean driver files. Progressive’s medians assume no violations, and federal rules already require carriers to review MVRs every year⁠¹⁠⁷. Excluding or retraining drivers with violations changes the rating input itself.
• Match the symbol to the fleet. Symbol 7 (scheduled vehicles only) promises less than symbol 1, and a newly bought vehicle is covered only if it meets the form’s conditions and is reported within 30 days⁠⁴.
• Retain more risk, at a size that can bear it. ATRI found large fleets offset lower premiums with out-of-pocket losses. Its research for 2021 to 2024 found that fleets retaining more primary risk, up to $10 million, had a lower total cost of risk⁠¹⁰. A higher physical damage deductible is the small-business version of the same trade⁠².
• Buy excess limits separately. Contract limits above the auto policy can come from a commercial umbrella. Umbrella renewals rose 5.3% in Q2 2026 (CIAB), so pricing both together shows the true cost of the limit⁠¹¹.

For trucking-specific coverages (cargo, physical damage on tractors, filings), see trucking.

Sources

1. 1
   Progressive Commercial, How much does commercial auto insurance cost? (2025 policy data) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
2. 2
   Insureon, How much does commercial auto insurance cost? (updated March 4, 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
3. 3
   Maine Bureau of Insurance, Personal Auto Policy PP 00 01 06 94 (ISO form, as filed in Maine) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
4. 4
   National General Insurance, Business Auto Coverage Form CA 00 01 10 13 (ISO form, forms catalog) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
5. 5
   Commonwealth Automobile Reinsurers (Massachusetts), Commercial Automobile Insurance Manual, Section III: Trucks, Tractors and Trailers (effective March 1, 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
6. 6
   eCFR, Office of the Federal Register, 49 CFR 391.23, Investigation and inquiries Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
7. 7
   eCFR, Office of the Federal Register, 49 CFR 391.25, Annual inquiry and review of driving record Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
8. 8
   FMCSA / eCFR, 49 CFR Part 387, minimum levels of financial responsibility (sections 387.9 and 387.33T) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
9. 9
   California Department of Motor Vehicles, Insurance requirements Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
10. 10
    American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2026 Update (July 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
11. 11
    The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers (CIAB), Commercial Property/Casualty Market Index, Q2 2026 (and Q1 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
12. 12
    Ivans (Applied Systems), Ivans Index Q2 2026 results released Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
13. 13
    National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), 2025 Market Share Reports for Property/Casualty Groups and Companies Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
14. 14
    Swiss Re Institute, sigma 4/2024: Social inflation: litigation costs drive claims inflation (Sept. 7, 2024) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
15. 15
    Casualty Actuarial Society and Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I), Increasing Inflation on Liability Insurance: Impact as of Year-End 2024 (November 2025) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
16. 16
    Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I), Membership Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑

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