what all affects THEIR insurance costs?

Companies that hire and train drivers are self insured to a certain extent and then have additional insurance products above and beyond, everything you submit that can be legally relayed to their insurance company will be shared. Often insurance companies will make the decision if your hired. You stated everything that they look at in determining the risk of hiring you.......credit issues seem to be the new focus as of late........with of course driving record, criminal history. Not all driving issues weigh in the same.....at fault rear end collisions are a big no no , whether in your personal car or CMV.

 

The company will pay higher rates for you over a driver that has an established record. That only makes sense. While you progress through your driving career your driving record starts to paint your picture on what kind of driver you are. If you get tickets or accidents you're more likely to get fired over these types of infractions. If your record stays clean and you start adding years to it the more you are in demand. If you go into a job just starting off and have no criminal record and no accidents or tickets of course you'll be taken first out of school. But if a driver came in with any amount of years and has a clean record then he or she would have priorities. They did with us anyway. The object is to set your goals for your dream job and getting there will require a clean record. The more your record has hits on it the more you're going to drop in pay. Of course it all depends on what type of infractions you have and how long ago they were. The big mega companies only want a warm body to fill their seats so that driver can make money for them. When that driver starts to cost them money then out the door you go. Most large companies are self insured but they still run their program like the insurance company.

 

If the company uses an outside insurer, they will generally be reviewed at least twice per year by the insurance company. Their rates will adjust accordingly, and so will your work status. Keep in mind, the insurance company can also dictate actions the company takes about you. Our trucks are gov. at 75 mph. 6 yrs ago, I had a bad spate, where I got 4 tickets in 4 months. about 5 months after the last ticket, the insurance man came by, saw my MVR, gave the company two choices, turn my truck down to 65 for two years, or fire me. Since my boss loves me so much, my truck was turned down to 65. I was hating life. They have also made the company fire drivers as well, few years before that, another of our drivers got 3 tickets in his personal vehicle in the span of 2 months, including one from an at fault accident with injuries. The insurance company would no longer cover him, even though the incidents occurred in his personal vehicle.

 

Insurance companies look at how long you have held your CDL, number of driving positions and your MVR or driving record. They want to know about any moving violations and accidents. Most will allow up to 2 and possibly 3 moving violations as long as they are not severe. Carriers may have additional restrictions. I don't recall any insurance companies checking criminal histories, but most carriers, especially the larger carriers, will check. Most won't hire drivers with recent felonies. Some will after at least 5 to 10 years have elapsed. Others won't accept any felonies, period.

 

One's credit history is a private matter that should NOT be a determining factor in deciding whether or not a person gets hired on to any job.

One of the reasons for getting a job is to earn money to pay off all creditors, along with supporting yourself and your family. I myself totally and completely paid off over $12,000 plus worth of debt by being able to both acquire a job and work as much overtime as possible to pay it off. This happened approximately 8 or 9 years ago. Denying someone a job because they are in debt is absolutely HORRIBLE!

 

It is almost as though the insurance companies have taken over the trucking industry, as far as the hiring and firing of truck drivers is concerned.

 

Insurance companies do run the WWT (Wonderful World of Trucking)

 

I agree 100% but that's not how they look at it. When my company started that, some 15 years ago, I was very vocal on the matter. Show me a couple that just got married (young) and has a spotless credit report. You can have a bad credit report even if you do not have any credit. Then someone in public relations explained what they look for. They are watching to see if someone is in real deep and might be prone to steel. In the gasoline business trucks completely loaded have come up missing before. So they would use the credit report to start building a case. It makes sense but I still do not agree with it.