Preparing your fleet for commercial auto renewal: a 120-day plan

Many renewal errors are schedule errors. Before anything goes to a market:

• Remove sold and totaled units and add anything bought mid-term that never reached the policy.
• Check every VIN against the registration. Transposed digits can cause certificate and claim headaches.
• Update values and upfits, especially bodies, liftgates and cranes added since the truck was scheduled.
• Confirm garaging, including employees' home ZIP codes for take-home vehicles.
• List trailers with their values and which trucks pull them.
• Match each driver to a license, a current MVR and a role, including office staff who drive now and then.
• Note who drives a personal vehicle for work, since it bears on hired and non-owned coverage.

If you're adding drivers, our guide to driver eligibility and MVR standards for fleets covers how to qualify them before they appear on the list.

Ask the current insurer for loss runs early, since they can take a while to arrive. Underwriters usually want them currently valued, meaning recently printed with today's reserves, not last year's copy. The Department of Insurance's guide for commercial buyers explains why they read them so closely: Claims experience is built into the rating formula and directly affects what the policy costs.

For each significant claim, or any cluster of similar ones, write a short narrative:

• What happened, in two or three plain sentences.
• Whether it was preventable, and why.
• Whether the driver still works for you and still drives.
• What changed afterward: training, a policy, a camera, a different truck assignment.
• Whether the claim is closed, and if not, what's still open.

Keep it factual. Blaming the other driver without evidence tends to read as defensive; a straight account with a real corrective step reads as a managed fleet. If footage or telematics data backs up your account, say so.

Your customers have often already decided part of your renewal for you. Before the file goes out, pull the insurance section of every active contract, master service agreement and lease, and list what each one asks for. The usual items are the auto liability limit, additional insured status for the customer, coverage for hired and non-owned vehicles, primary and noncontributory wording and a waiver of subrogation.

Then pull the list of certificate holders from the expiring policy. Most names on it will need a new certificate once the renewal binds, and a customer who doesn't get one may hold payment or keep your crew off the site. Flag any contract signed during the year that asks for something the current policy doesn't provide; renewal is often the cleanest time to add it. Contracts expected in the coming year matter too, since a public agency or a large property manager can bring requirements of its own.

Proposals are far easier to compare when you've already decided what you need. Before submitting, settle:

• The liability limit your contracts require. Most ask for a $1 million combined single limit; read the largest customer's requirements before considering anything lower.
• Whether an umbrella calls for a particular limit beneath it.
• Hired and non-owned auto and which employees drive their own cars for work.
• The physical damage deductibles to quote and which older units might drop physical damage.
• Stated amounts for specialized trucks, backed by invoices.
• Rental reimbursement, towing and trailer coverage.

Separate what's required from what's optional so the final decision is deliberate. Our guide to how deductibles and vehicle values change a fleet premium helps with the physical damage choices, and our page on hired and non-owned coverage explains the employee-vehicle piece.

The last part of the package is often the most persuasive: what got better. Summarize new controls and, where you have reliable figures of your own, show the trend. Fewer speeding events per vehicle, every MVR pulled on time, a backing rule that ended a run of dock claims. Underwriters generally price the operation in front of them, so give them this year's operation, not last year's.

Our page on fleet safety measures underwriters often credit lists the controls underwriters tend to credit. When the package is ready, start your renewal quote, and we'll shop it with national carriers alongside your current terms, so you can compare like for like across your whole commercial auto insurance in California program, not just the price.