Insurance Cost to Safety Performance Gap Increases
The frequency and severity of truck-involved accidents is decreasing even as insurance costs rise
While overall truck safety performance on US highways has improved over the past two years, truck insurance costs have continued to rise, creating a widening gap.
We indexed truck insurance costs since 2014 compared to the accident rate involving trucks. As the chart below shows, the accident rate increased faster than insurance costs until 2022 before the two diverged and insurance costs have continued to rise as accident rates decrease.
The Truck Safety Index is a composite of fatality and injury rates in truck-involved accidents per 100 million miles traveled by all vehicles. It had dropped around 4% below 2014 levels in 2023 and around 13% below 2014 last year. The largest decrease has been in fatalities, indicating accidents are less severe and/or truck and car crash protection has improved.
Our Insurance Cost Index is an average of insurance premiums and self-insurance costs paid by all US trucking fleets. The index is a component of the TruckAnswers National Trucking Cost Index.
Updates to the Truck Safety Index and Insurance Cost Index as well as deeper dives into the factors impacting safety performance and insurance cost are available to Premium TruckAnswers Members. Sign up for Premium membership below. Current owners and employees of trucking companies receive a discount.
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