Trucking insurance guides

Background reading for people writing commercial trucking insurance. These pages explain the subject, not the software: what an X-date is, how CSA scores work, what happens when a carrier's insurance gets cancelled.

If you are looking for instructions for Native Base Market Tracker instead, those are in the documentation.

• What is an X-date in insurance?An X-date is the day a commercial policy expires and the account goes to market. How producers find and use X-dates, and why trucking X-dates are public.
• How to find trucking insurance leadsHow producers find trucking insurance prospects, what each source costs in time and money, and how to read the federal filings that show who is buying now.
• CSA BASIC scores, explained for insurance agentsWhat the seven CSA BASICs measure, how percentiles differ from raw scores, which ones underwriters weight most, and how to read a carrier's safety profile.
• What is an ISS score?ISS is the federal Inspection Selection System, a score and band that tells roadside enforcement whether to inspect a truck. What the three bands mean.
• Chameleon carriers: spotting a reincarnated motor carrierA chameleon carrier is a shut-down operation re-registered under a new USDOT to shed its safety record. The public signals that give it away.
• BI/PD filings, explainedWhat a BI/PD filing is, who files it, the minimum liability limits it evidences, and why active authority with no filing on file is a genuine red flag.
• How to verify a motor carrier's insuranceFour ways to confirm a motor carrier is actually insured, what each one proves, and the gap between a federal filing and a certificate of insurance.
• When a trucking company's insurance is cancelledFrom cancellation notice to revoked authority, how long the replacement window is, what the public record shows at each step, and how producers work it.
• How to roll a book of businessWhat it takes to move a book of commercial accounts to a new agency or carrier: the sequence, the timing, the retention maths and where rolls go wrong.
• Selling insurance to new motor carriersNew authorities are first-time insurance buyers with no incumbent. When to reach them, what to say, why they are hard to write, and how to qualify them.
• How to look up a DOT numberFour ways to find a motor carrier's USDOT number: by company name, from the truck, from an MC number or from paperwork. Plus how to check that it is active.
• How do I find the BFE of a property?Where to find a property's base flood elevation: FEMA's map, the flood insurance study, an elevation certificate or the floodplain office, and how to read it.
• How to find GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating)Where a truck's GVWR is printed, what a VIN decode can and cannot tell you, how the eight weight classes work, and why insurers and regulators rate off it.