WASHINGTON — The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) is seeking motor carriers to participate in research on rising insurance costs and strategies for managing risk.
“The total cost of risk is growing annually for every fleet, regardless of size. While many carriers are cutting back on insurance coverage to control expenses, premiums keep climbing—and reducing coverage only heightens exposure to catastrophic litigation,” said Josh Hankins, J.B. Hunt senior vice president of safety & security. “Today, trucking faces a perfect insurance storm. Fortunately, ATRI’s insurance research will offer critical insights into strategies fleets can adopt to manage these costs and measure their impact.”
Premiums Continue to Rise
“Trucking auto liability premiums rose by 36 percent per mile in the past 8 years amid persistent unprofitability for insurers, even as truck crashes declined over the past 4 years. In 2025, insurance cost/availability and lawsuit abuse, a primary contributor to rising insurance costs, were voted as the third- and second-greatest issues facing the trucking industry respectively,” ATRI said.
In response to this financial pressure, fleets are reevaluating their total cost of risk by pursuing a variety of new technologies, training protocols, and insurance schemes, such as self-insurance or captives. Prior ATRI research detailed how fleets reduced coverage and raised deductibles from 2018 to 2020 in search of savings, self-incentivizing safety improvements but still experiencing higher premiums. ATRI’s Research Advisory Committee (RAC) identified expanding upon this prior research as a top priority in order to better understand and assess industry-wide trends in the ongoing adoption and effectiveness of these strategies.
Motor carriers are requested to submit data on their coverage stacks for the years 2021 through 2024, in addition to information on their use of safety technology and alternative insurance arrangements. All data is kept completely confidential for analysis in aggregate form only, and ATRI will sign non-disclosure agreements as desired.
All participating carriers will receive a customized report that compares their fleet’s cost of risk to an anonymized peer group. Motor carriers can complete the survey by PDF or online here. The deadline is Friday, Dec. 19.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
