Unlock powerful insights into the truck insurance market with precision filters that explore the entire market, a particular insurer, or an individual writing paper.
In this article
- About the data
- Interpreting the data
About the data
The data used to generate Market Explorer is derived from multiple governmental data sources published at varying time intervals by the US Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), among others. It is important to note that insurance filing data is the only dataset that is updated daily. All other datasets are updated monthly.
The following datapoints are listed for each motor carrier on the Market Explorer dashboard.
- DOT #
- Company name
- State located
- Hazmat status
- Unit count
- Authority start date
- Current insurance company
- Effective date of auto liability policy
- BASIC safety alert count
- Radius of operations
- Cargo (commodities) being hauled
Interpreting the data
The powerful simplicity of this dashboard often masks the considerable complexity required in deriving meaningful conclusions from it's underlying information. Consider the following concepts;
The time required to publish inspections and violation reports
Inspection and violation reports are generated each day by DOT officers on during the course of their work patrolling public highways. The process of collecting these reports and entering them into the FMCSA’s system can vary depending on the state or type of inspection. The process typically ranges from several days up to a few weeks before the reports appear in official databases.
The result of DataQ'd violations
When a motor carrier successfully challenges a violation through the dataQ process, the resulting correction can influence the safety scores of multiple motor carriers, not just the motor carrier who processed the dataQ. After a violation is removed or amended, the FMCSA recalculates the BASIC scores for all motor carriers. This recalculation may alter peer group percentiles and comparative rankings, as BASIC scores function as percentile measures reflecting how each motor carrier performs relative to others.
Insurers with more than 1 writing paper
This graph can be generated for individual writing companies or for a group of writing companies that make-up a logical "insurer". The best example of this concept would be the insurer Progressive who writes business on more than 20 different individual writing papers. When generating this graph for Progressive, the results of the graph are a combination of those 20+ writing papers.
When a motor carrier stops participating in for-hire interstate business
If a motor carrier discontinues business operations that require a federal insurance filing, the motor carrier is listed as "out-of-business" for the purposes of this graph.
When an insurer posts a new filing at each renewal
Some insurance companies have a practice of posting a new public insurance filing each time that a motor carrier renews their policy. An insurance company that posts a new filings at every renewal will show as renewed with that insurance company even though a completely new posting is shown by the FMCSA.
When an insurer does not post a new filing at each renewal
Some insurance companies have a practice of leaving an insurance filing unchanged and in place for many years even when a renewal policy is written. An insurance company that fails to post an updated filings at every renewal is still counted as renewed with that insurance company even though no updated filing is posted by the insurance company.
When an insurer posts a cancelation at each renewal
Some insurance companies have a practice of posting a cancelation for an insurance policy, even when they intend to renew the policy for another term. The data used to generate this graph correctly compensates for this practice and identifies those "canceled" polices as a continuation of business with that same insurer.
Other unique scenarios
Some insurance companies - especially those who are not trucking focused - will occasionally post incorrect filings with the FMCSA. The Market Analysis performs a complex set of logical arguments in order to compensate for these data anomalies.
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