Well, my insurance broker who has been selling truck policies for Progressive for years told me exactly that. I was lucky and got underwritten in December of 2015. My truck/trailer and cargo insurance is a little over 600 a month. That's for a 2016 truck and trailer. Which in today's market isn't too bad... The company who's authority I ran under before getting my own charged us $970 a month.
What kind of coverages do you have one your equipment? That's about what I'm paying but I have an older truck with full coverage and i left my trailer as liability only.
I got my authority a month ago. Took my broker a week to get a company to write me. I'm paying 18k a year for liability and cargo but no collision or comp. Of that, my cargo is 2100 for 100k with a 1k deductible pulling reefer including seafood.
I have full coverage. 1 million auto part, 1 million GL and 100k cargo insurance. 2500 deductible on truck & trailer, 1k deductible on cargo. I will say it's really important for guys to review the coverage value on a year to year basis as the value of the equipment is depreciating.
I can't get my cargo from them, they don't provide it. As far as the rate it's too high for my liking but that's because they could use the fact that my authority was inactive for 2 years so they treat me the same as a new entrant. I'm about at a year though and I'll shop around because I know I can get it for half. I already told my insurance guy he better be ready to get me a much better rate or I'll go elsewhere.
I thought in order for your authority to be active you had to have $75,000 minimum in cargo insurance.
Not the case, our authority is still active. We just "paused" our insurance for couple of months "Vacation" and it took our insurance premium down from $980 to $200 a month.
FMCSA removed the cargo requirement in 2011. I have it, but it only shows up when a company requests a binder. Now if you haul HHG, that's different. Insurance company will do a filing for that, as it's required.
Only requirement for active authority is BIPD minimum...750,000. Cargo is no longer required to activate authority.