The market moved against fleets
ATRI research, cited by industry reporting in 2026, found commercial auto liability premiums rose 18.6 percent to 10.2 cents per mile from 2021 through 2024, while heavy-duty truck crash rates fell 2.6 percent over roughly the same period. In ATRI's 2025 survey, insurance cost and lawsuit abuse ranked third and second among the top issues facing the trucking industry. Premiums moved up on litigation and claim severity, not on crash frequency, which means a clean safety record alone does not cap the rate.
What underwriters price in the oilfield
The oilfield risk profile is worse than general freight: rural and caliche roads, heavy and oversized loads, hazmat classes, high driver turnover, and the environmental exposure of crude and produced water. Underwriters price crash history, CSA scores, driver files, and fleet management data. A fleet that runs untracked trucks and paper tickets hands the underwriter nothing to defend its rate, so the premium reflects the worst case instead of the actual record.
The record is the discount
Telematics data, driver qualification files, PM compliance, and incident investigation reports are the evidence underwriters accept, and they are the same records that survive a claim. A carrier that can show hours tracking, inspection readiness, and a real maintenance schedule gives the market a reason to price risk down. Insurance cost is not a fixed line item; it is the price of the record you keep.
Insurance sits at the same table as COI compliance, inspection readiness, and incident investigation. If the fleet's safety record lives in a binder that gets assembled at renewal time, an operations audit will show which records the underwriter should be pricing on.