There is no honest average. A single owner-operator running regional dry van and a 40-truck flatbed fleet hauling into the oilfield are not in the same pricing universe, and any number that claims to cover both is marketing. What we can do is show you the actual structure of a commercial truck insurance premium in Texas, which line items carry the weight, and which of them you can change before your next renewal.
What are you actually paying for?
A commercial truck policy is not one price. It is five or six separate coverages that get quoted, rated, and negotiated independently, and knowing which is which is the first step to controlling the total.
Primary auto liability
The largest single piece for most fleets, and the one driven by things outside your control. Under 49 CFR §387.9, an interstate for-hire carrier hauling non-hazardous freight in a vehicle over 10,000 pounds must carry $750,000 in public liability coverage. That figure sits in a schedule column headed “January 1, 1985,” and it has never been raised. Hazmat minimums are higher — $1 million or $5 million depending on the commodity.
Almost nobody buys the federal floor. Shippers and brokers routinely require $1 million, and a growing share of contracts want excess layers above that. You are not pricing against the regulation; you are pricing against what your customers demand in writing.
Physical damage
Rated as a percentage of the stated value of each tractor and trailer. This is the coverage where equipment choice shows up directly: a late-model tractor with radar, lane-keeping, and a camera package costs meaningfully more to repair after a moderate collision than the same truck did five years ago, and physical damage rates follow repair cost, not sticker price.
Motor truck cargo
Usually $100,000 as a baseline, higher for specific commodities. Read the exclusions rather than the limit — unattended vehicle, refrigeration breakdown, and theft-from-trailer exclusions are where cargo claims actually get denied.
Non-trucking liability or bobtail
Covers the tractor when it is operated outside the dispatch of the motor carrier. Cheap, frequently misunderstood, and a common gap for owner-operators leased to a carrier.
General liability, workers’ compensation, and excess
General liability covers premises and loading operations, not the truck. Workers’ compensation is optional in Texas for private employers — TDI states plainly that private employers “can choose to carry workers’ compensation insurance coverage, but it is not required in most cases” — but going without forfeits the exclusive-remedy defense, which is a poor trade in an industry where injuries are severe. Excess or umbrella layers sit on top of the primary auto limit and are priced off it.
Why does Texas cost more than it used to?
Because commercial auto is the one commercial line that has not softened. Industry survey data reported through trade press put commercial auto premiums up roughly 5.8% in the first quarter of 2026 — the highest of any commercial line, and the 59th consecutive quarter of increases — while overall property and casualty premiums fell 1.2%.
There is also a Texas-specific regulatory data point. In Commissioner’s Order No. 2026-9983, described in TDI Bulletin B-0005-26, the Texas Department of Insurance approved a 4.9% overall commercial automobile rate increase for TAIPA effective November 1, 2026, with bodily injury and property damage liability each up 5.0%. TAIPA is the assigned-risk plan, not the voluntary market, so this is not a statewide mandate. It is a regulator-reviewed signal about Texas commercial auto losses — and it is the number you will pay against if your fleet gets non-renewed into the plan.
On the litigation side, we are going to be careful where most of the trucking press is not. There are widely circulated “median nuclear verdict” figures ranging from about $22 million to over $50 million, and they trace to competing vendor blog posts rather than to any single verifiable dataset. We do not quote numbers we cannot source. What is verifiable is that the Texas Legislature considered the problem serious enough to act: House Bill 19, 87th Legislature, effective September 1, 2021, is captioned as relating to civil liability of commercial motor vehicle owners and operators “including the effect that changes to that liability have on commercial automobile insurance,” and it created a bifurcated trial structure so a plaintiff must establish driver negligence before putting the carrier’s hiring and training practices in front of a jury.
What actually moves your number?
Six things, roughly in order of how much they matter to an underwriter looking at your submission for the first time.
1. Radius of operation and commodity
Local under 50 miles rates very differently from regional under 500 miles, which rates differently from long-haul. Commodity matters just as much: general freight is the baseline, and refrigerated, flatbed with securement exposure, oilfield, hazmat, and auto hauling each carry their own load. Be precise about this in your submission, because a vague description gets rated conservatively.
2. Loss history
Five years of loss runs, with the last 24 months weighted heaviest. Frequency of small claims damages you more than a single large one, because frequency reads as a control problem while severity can read as bad luck.
3. Your CSA and SMS scores
FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System is often the first thing an underwriter opens — before your loss runs. Unsafe Driving and Hours-of-Service Compliance carry the most weight. Pull your own profile and challenge inaccurate violations through DataQs. Carriers cannot unsee a score, but they can see a corrected one.
4. Driver quality and turnover
49 CFR Part 391 sets what has to be in a driver qualification file. Underwriters read those files as a proxy for how the operation is run. Written and enforced minimum standards — two years CDL experience, three years clean MVR, documented road test, annual MVR review — are worth real premium. So is low turnover, which underwriters read as a stability signal.
5. Telematics and cameras
ELD data is compliance. Telematics and forward-facing cameras are underwriting leverage, because they let you show improvement rather than assert it. Dashcam footage has resolved more disputed-liability claims than any argument a defense lawyer ever made. If you already run cameras, put it in the submission in writing; it does not help you sitting in your office.
6. Deductible and retention structure
Past roughly 10 to 15 power units with a decent loss record, taking a higher physical damage deductible or a modest liability retention often buys back more premium than remarketing the account does. That is a cash-flow decision, so make it deliberately and early, not on renewal eve.
What does a competitive submission look like?
Start 60 to 90 days out. A complete submission gets underwritten; a rushed one gets rated defensively. Include:
- Five years of currently valued loss runs, and a written explanation of any large claim — what happened, what changed afterward.
- A current equipment schedule with accurate stated values, VINs, and radius by unit.
- Driver list with dates of hire, CDL issue dates, and MVR status.
- Your written safety program: hiring standards, training cadence, drug and alcohol program, accident review procedure, camera and telematics deployment.
- A short narrative of what changed in the last 12 months. Underwriters price trajectory, not just history.
If your renewal falls anywhere near November 1, 2026, and your loss history puts you at risk of the assigned-risk market, start earlier than that. TAIPA should be a fallback, not a destination.
The fleets that pay the least in Texas are not the ones that shop hardest. They are the ones whose submission answers the underwriter’s questions before they are asked. If you want to see what your current program looks like from that side of the desk, send us your loss runs and declarations pages and we will mark up exactly where the premium is going and what would move it. Our free truck insurance checkup is built for exactly that review, and our trucking insurance page covers how we place these accounts.
Related reading: Why Is My Commercial Truck Insurance Going Up in Texas?
