The Everhold blog
How CSA scores and your inspection record affect your truck insurance quote
There is no single CSA score, but underwriters, who decide whether to insure your truck and at what price, read the record behind it closely: your roadside inspections, violations, out of service orders, and crashes. Clean inspections tend to help a quote, while recent out of service violations and crashes can raise the price or narrow which insurance companies will quote. Each insurance company weighs the record differently, so pull your free SAFER Company Snapshot before you shop or renew.
What is a CSA score?
CSA stands for Compliance, Safety, Accountability, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA's) safety program. Its Safety Measurement System, or SMS, sorts your inspection, violation, and crash data into seven categories called BASICs: Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, Hours of Service Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, Controlled Substances and Alcohol, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and Driver Fitness.
So "my CSA score" usually means a percentile in one of those categories: a ranking of your company against carriers with a similar number of inspections, violations, or crashes. A higher percentile means a worse record. A violation counts whether or not the officer also wrote a ticket, and a reportable crash counts no matter who caused it, unless FMCSA rules it not preventable. An out of service order stops a driver or a truck until the problem is fixed.
Can insurance companies see your CSA scores?
If you haul property, an insurance company can't look up your BASIC percentiles. Under the FAST Act, a 2015 federal highway law, FMCSA's public SMS website stopped showing percentiles and alerts for carriers that haul property. An alert marks a category where FMCSA may step in, with a warning letter or an investigation. You can still see your own by logging in to the SMS website.
What the underwriter can see is the raw record: each roadside inspection, each violation, each out of service order, and each reportable crash. The public SMS website also still shows your measure, the score your percentile is ranked on, in most categories. FMCSA's free SAFER Company Snapshot shows your inspection counts, your out of service rates next to the national averages, and your crashes. Some insurance companies also run that record through their own scoring tools.
Which parts of the record matter to a quote?
Every insurance company has its own guidelines, but a few parts of the record tend to draw attention:
- Out of service violations. FMCSA's scoring gives them extra weight, and underwriters notice a pattern.
- Crashes. Recent ones and any with injuries stand out. A crash isn't the same as a claim, but expect questions about both.
- Unsafe driving violations. Speeding, following too closely, and handheld phone use are the kind of driving that underwriters tie to liability claims, when your truck hurts someone or damages their property.
- Maintenance and hours of service violations. Brakes, lights, tires, and logbook problems hint at how you run day to day.
- How many inspections you have. A new authority with few inspections has a thin record, so the underwriter leans harder on your driving record and experience.
How does your record change your truck insurance quote?
A record works on a quote in three ways. It can change the price. It can change which insurance companies will quote your trucking insurance at all, since some decline carriers with recent out of service problems or crashes. And it can change the conditions, such as a requirement for dash cameras, a higher deductible (the part of each claim you pay yourself), or stricter driver standards.
A clean record works the other way. A clean inspection, one with no violations, adds to your history, and over time clean inspections can lower some of your BASIC measures. None of this works like a formula. Your claims history, drivers, equipment, radius (how far from home your trucks run), and freight all go into the same decision.
A made up example: say you and another owner operator haul the same freight with no claims. You have a run of clean inspections; last spring a brake violation put the other truck out of service. Your record usually reads better to an underwriter.
How long does a bad inspection follow you?
In SMS, an inspection or crash stops counting after two years, and the SMS methodology counts it for less as it ages. FMCSA has approved changes to how the system ranks carriers, including more focus on violations from the past year. It hasn't set a launch date, so the current rules still apply; watch FMCSA's preview page for news.
Insurance companies can look further back. Many ask for several years of loss runs, the claim reports from your current and past insurance companies. So a claim or crash from this year can still come up at your next few renewals.
What if something on your record is wrong?
FMCSA runs a system called DataQs for requesting a review of inspection or crash data you believe is wrong. Common reasons include a violation written to the wrong USDOT number or a truck you had already sold. When a court dismisses the ticket tied to a roadside violation, or finds you not guilty, you can ask to have that violation taken out of SMS.
For crashes, FMCSA's Crash Preventability Determination Program lets you send evidence through DataQs that certain types of crashes, such as being hit from behind while stopped, were not preventable. If FMCSA agrees, the crash stays on your record but is left out of your Crash Indicator measure. Keep the police report and photos either way; they help with your insurance company too.
How do you explain violations to an insurance company?
A record with problems on it doesn't explain itself, so explain it. If a brake violation led you to change your maintenance schedule, say so. If a driver with two violations no longer drives for you, say so. A short written explanation with proof of the fix gives an underwriter a reason to weigh the record fairly.
Put it in your renewal submission, the file sent to insurance companies before you renew, with your driver list, equipment list, and loss runs. A clean renewal submission gets a better look than loose papers, and a written safety program shows the fixes are part of how you run.
What to check this week
- Pull your SAFER Company Snapshot and compare your out of service rates with the national averages.
- Log in to the SMS website with your USDOT number and PIN, and look at your BASIC percentiles and any alerts.
- List each out of service violation and crash from the past two years, with what you fixed after each one.
- File a DataQs request for anything on your record that is wrong, and keep a copy.
- If your truck count or annual miles changed, update your MCS 150, the form where you report them to FMCSA. Numbers that are too low can make your Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator measures look worse.
- Ask your agent what the insurance companies asked about your record at your last quote or renewal.
See your DOT record the way an underwriter does
Coverage depends on underwriting and the terms of your policy.