Don’t want ELD telematics in the truck?
Older trucks may not be eligible for full commercial trucking insurance coverage
In an effort to address the commercial auto profitability issues resulting from the rise of nuclear verdicts over the last several years, insurance companies have tightened their underwriting and started stricter requirements on operating experience.
One of these stricter requirements include the age of your equipment.
Depending on the insurance company, carriers will find it difficult to get insurance for a vehicle or trailer older than 15 years old. Insurers either will not accept older trucks or will want them thoroughly inspected.
Unfortunately, with the rise of the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate, many drivers decided to not deal with ELDs to track their hours-of-service daily logs. To be exempt from the ELD mandate, the vehicle engine’s manufactured model must be older than the year 2000.
Today, this vehicle would be more than 20 years old.
While you may want to be exempt from the ELD mandate, you will likely face difficulty getting the vehicle insured.
Insurance providers will not insure most commercial trucks that are considered antiques. Some drivers mention looking for the truck to be professionally appraised and submit the appraisal to the insurer, so they believe the actual value.
However, when it comes to for-hire truck insurance, an antique truck appraisal does not work. The insurance company will only pay up to the market value of the trucks base value before any upgrades or improvements.
For example, if you buy a 1998 Peterbilt at Kelly Blue Book type market value for $12,000, and later add $50,000 into upgrades, the insurance company still only values the truck at $12,000 if the truck is a total loss instead of the $62,000 you put into the vehicle.
Insurance companies do not pay for upgrades even if you put a new engine in the truck. We have seen many situations like this in the commercial trucking insurance industry.
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