Premiums for commercial truck insurance hit a record 10.6 cents per mile in 2025, even as truck-involved crash rates fell, according to American Transportation Research Institute's (ATRI) 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking. That cost increase outpaced consumer inflation by 1.2 percentage points. For small fleets running fewer than 10 trucks, the burden lands harder, and with fewer options for relief.
Data-driven underwriting programs have largely been built around hardware that smaller operators cannot afford. Corgi Insurance and Trucker Path Insurance, both based in Phoenix, are now testing a different approach. The two companies announced a trucking insurance program underwritten on route-planning data from the Trucker Path navigation app. More than 1.2 million commercial drivers use the app to plan their trips. The program covers auto liability, motor truck cargo, physical damage, and general liability, with Trucker Path Insurance serving as agent of record. Participation is opt-in and driver-controlled.
The underwriting draws on routing choices drivers make before the truck moves, rather than telematics recorded during the trip. The Trucker Path app routes drivers around severe weather, cargo theft corridors, sharp turns, lane restrictions, and road closures. Those decisions, made in advance, determine what exposure a fleet takes on. Corgi built its underwriting model around that planning data rather than bolting a data layer onto a standard product.
"This is a class of underwriting information that has not existed in this segment," said Drew Bregman, head of strategy at Corgi Trucking. "It let us build a program around the data instead of adding an endorsement to a standard product."
Cargo theft is a consistent loss driver in trucking. Verisk's CargoNet unit recorded 3,798 cargo theft incidents in 2024, a 26 percent increase over 2023, with total reported losses approaching $455 million. Routes that steer clear of high-risk corridors represent a measurable reduction in exposure. Traditional underwriting reads that risk from the loss run after a claim. This program reads it before the truck moves.
Commercial auto has posted an underwriting loss for 14 consecutive years. Net underwriting losses reached $4.9 billion in 2024 before improving to $2.2 billion in 2025. The combined ratio moved from 107.2 to 102.7, according to A.M. Best, though the line remains unprofitable.
The industry's response has been to make data technology a condition of coverage, at least for larger accounts. SambaSafety's 2025 Telematics Report found that 88 percent of fleets use telematics for safety, but only 30 percent share that data with insurers. Among the top 50 commercial insurers, 80 percent use telematics data in some form, yet only 4 percent consider their programs advanced.
The hardware and subscription costs required to reach that standard are absorbed into the economics of larger fleets. For operators running fewer than 10 trucks, they are not. That structural gap is what Corgi and Trucker Path are addressing. The program reaches small fleets through an app they already run, without requiring additional hardware or a separate data subscription.
Adam Smith, vice president of product and technology at Trucker Path Insurance, said the platform's scale changes the safety influence it can carry.
"Data and technology are where this industry is going, but only if the data can be used to influence safer outcomes on the road," Smith said. "Millions of drivers plan their day in Trucker Path. No carrier has ever been able to influence safe driving habits on that scale."
The program is currently available only to Trucker Path app users, which limits its immediate scope. Whether the underwriting model produces better loss ratios will depend on whether pre-trip routing choices translate reliably into fewer claims. That proposition remains to be tested at scale in this segment.
What the launch establishes is a data type that previously did not exist for small commercial trucking: route-planning behavior at the point of decision. Brokers placing accounts in this segment have had limited tools to differentiate small-fleet trucking risk at the application stage. A program that incorporates pre-trip routing decisions introduces a variable that can separate careful operators from indifferent ones before a loss occurs.
The broader market is moving in the same direction, though mostly through hardware. Daimler Truck Financial Services and GEICO launched a connected insurance program for Freightliner and Western Star owners in late 2025. It offers premium savings for fleets that share telematics data with insurers of up to 10 percent for customers who share real-time Detroit Connect telematics data.
RLI Transportation, meanwhile, partnered with TruckerCloud in April 2025 to access standardized data from more than 60 electronic logging device and camera systems. The Corgi and Trucker Path program operates without that hardware infrastructure, built instead around the navigation platform small operators already use daily.
