Investments in technology are an ever-more common lynchpin in owner-operators' approach to improving the business-risk profile with insurers.
More than just one insurance company today offers a straight percentage discount for new customers enrolling in liability-insurance programs to connect with partner vendors' electronic logging devices or broader telematics platforms.
Investment in an ELD for most owner-operators isn't an option, as prior parts of this Partners in Business playbook make clear. With most ELDs, you're getting more than just a bare-minimum work-time logger, but also the potential to track driving, truck/trailer and other telematics data.
Such telematics platforms are unique, insurers note, in that they can help a trucking customer influence insurance costs directly, with rewards in better rates for safe driving habits.
Some well-known discount programs -- for instance, Progressive's Smart Haul -- might offer a single-digit percentage discount for sharing drive/vehicle data through an ELD connection to the insurance company. Add a smart dashcam or in some cases any dashcam, and the percentage might rise as high as 12%-18%, combined with stellar operational safety.
Most often, though, simply running with a dashcam can give you or your insurance agent a talking point to sell risk reduction to any insurer, as many an owner-operator has found. The discount for installing one might not be itemized on the policy, yet when other owners are experiencing big increases at renewal, lower risk will give you a leg up.
The Rexing company's V-1 Basic device featured in recent months in Overdrive's product-focused Gear section, where you'll find details of a variety of options for dashcams for basic on-highway and more involved protection. Find more options in the collection at this link.
Using ELDs, dashcams to your advantage with underwriters
Over a decade or more, some insurance agents note, underwriters have evolved to take into consideration implementation and use, then reductions in actual driving events -- likewise in the bedrock dollar size of any claim that might be mitigated by a dashcam, for instance, or other data.
Compliance consultants believe the smallest trucking companies are in a sweet spot for managing telematics data. Many larger fleets aren't very good at it, with so much data incoming.
What managing telematics data really means. It's all about actively engaging with the data captured by ELDs or a combination of devices to log so-called "critical events" like speeding, too-close following distance, hard braking/cornering -- and to use them in some way for safety management. A lot of that is going to come down to a small fleet owner-operator's coaching efforts with drivers. Or with themselves with awareness of their own tendencies, as the case may be.
With data analysis conducted on an ongoing basis -- and involving the driver in the effort, easy for most of you -- you'll be able to see any operator's tendencies, including your own, and thus get opportunity to actively improve.
[Related: Trucking's State of Surveillance: Inside the costs, benefits -- special report]
When you're in the market for insurance or engaging your agent at time for renewal, lay out your approach to critical events utilizing the data. Say you noticed a pattern of speeding events logged. Showing active efforts at reduction with results will increasingly help your rates, particularly as usage-based insurance (UBI) models get more common (read on for more about the prevalence of those kinds of programs).
Mitigate premium impacts of the shock loss. That's agent lingo for the big accident that might otherwise result in a huge premium increase at renewal. Using your tracking and improvement in critical events to establish generally safe, and improving, behavior can save thousands.
An insurance agent recently gave the example of a one-truck owner-operator involved in a huge crash and facing prospects of moving to a different insurance company entirely, with premiums rising to an annual $20K-$23K. Amid the freight-market doldrums of 2024-'25, accept that and the owner was staring down an end to his time in business with authority.
Yet a review of telematics data showing generally safe behavior, a minimum of critical events, even with the shock loss on the record, got a quote down to at least manageable rate more than nearly $7K less.
Fundamentally, if you have good driver data showing performance, stay aware of it, use it, and you can get better insurance rates.
Related: Telematics beyond ELD systems: Promise, redundancy, real expense/uptime benefits]
Data engagement in practice. Common ELD vendors like Motive and Samsara's systems come with critical-event monitoring as an option, capturing speeding, hard braking, hard cornering, "unsafe" acceleration and others.
While not 100% foolproof -- all too often a hard-braking event is simply unavoidable at no fault of the driver -- the ELD's online dashboard can be set to send alerts for those events, such as when braking force or speed reaches a level above a threshold. Many systems then compute a dynamically updated score for each driver based on events, visible to operators and/or the fleet owner, effectively turning data-engagement into something akin to a game. An owner-operator's in competition with his/her own past performance, while for a small fleet, drivers compete amongst themselves and/or the often-enough-still-driving owner.
One of Overdrive's recent-past Small Fleet Champ award-winning owners told the story of one of his leased owner-ops calling him out of the blue one day with some big news. "He beat my score," the champ said, "and called me to rub it in my face."
He gave credit where credit's due, and the competitive spirit amongst drivers there on drive-data engagement led to an actual per-truck premium reduction with his company's most-recent renewal.
Pay-as-you-drive, 'usage-based' insurance on the rise
While it's not an option with all insurers, more and more small fleets can opt into a usage-based insurance (UBI) policy, where you pay according to actual miles exposure rather than theoretical risk. In most cases, such policies are reserved for companies with well more than just single truck, but trends in the personal auto insurance market toward UBI are sure to continue toward trucking.
In such a program, motor carriers might be charged a rate per mile driven or for days/weeks of the truck's use over the course of the policy’s term, often including a minimum threshold for annual mileage. Geography of operation, depending on the risk profile of the places you run, could be a part of such a program, too, with location data shared.
Proven, safe operation in low-risk rural America, say, with drive-data sharing through telematics could yield savings in such a model, but of course the wrong sort of driving data might do the exact opposite and skyrocket your premiums.
[Related: Practicing safety: Resist complacency]
UBI isn't exactly common among Overdrive's audience today, as of our most recent accounting. Survey results from early 2026 show just slightly more than 1 in 10 owners (12%) reported then-current enrollment in a UBI policy, yet another 10% said UBI was either available from their current insurer or they'd used it in some form in the recent past.
Among those with past experience, miles-run was the most-common factor at play in premium rates, along with geography of operation. As detailed in this prior part of the Trucking & Other Insurance Partners in Business section, location (whether place of business domicile or, as in UBI, lanes of operation) is a known primary factor in determining premiums in insurance underwriting.
Read next: Other ways to save on trucking insurance
