Which Insurance Companies Insure New Authority? We Counted

Every new trucking company's first liability filing names an insurer, and the filings are public. We read 10,784 of them, for every new property carrier that applied Jul 1 to Sep 30, 2026. Counts as of Oct 13, 2026.

Which insurance companies insure new trucking authorities? Progressive, more often than not. Of the 10,784 new carriers that got a liability filing after applying Jul 1 to Sep 30, 2026, a Progressive company filed the first one for 52.0% of them. GEICO companies filed for 13.9%. More than 200 other insurers split what was left.

So one insurer group wrote the first policy for slightly more than half of all the new trucking companies that applied this summer and got one, and a second group wrote 13.9%. Everybody else, all couple hundred of them, shared the rest. That's a strange shape for a market. It's also the shape you'd never see from the inside, because nobody shopping for their first truck policy gets to look at anyone else's.

Except you sort of can. Here's how this works. When you start a trucking company, FMCSA wants proof that you carry liability insurance, and you don't get to just tell them. Your insurer files a certificate with FMCSA, almost always a form called a BMC-91X, which says, in effect, "this carrier is ours." Federal rules say that certificate has to be in the form FMCSA prescribes (49 CFR 387.313). And then it goes into a public federal dataset with the insurer's name on it.

Which means that if you want to know who insures brand-new trucking companies, you don't need a survey or an industry source. You need to read a lot of filings. First Load stores these records nightly, so we read them. This is what they say.

Who filed the most first policies for new authorities?

Two names at the top, then a long, flat tail. The table shows the ten insurer groups that filed the most first liability filings for carriers in our cohort. Shares are out of the 10,784 carriers whose first filing had an insurer name we could read.

A word on the word "rank." It means "filed more often for new carriers in this window," and that's all it means. Number 1 isn't the best insurer and number 10 isn't the tenth best. Three companies tied at 130 filings each, so we listed them alphabetically, which is about the least interesting tiebreaker there is.

Notice the cliff, too. Number two filed 1,498 first policies. Number three, Great West Casualty, filed 247, which works out to 2.3%, and it's the biggest of everybody below the top two.

How concentrated is new-authority insurance?

Very, if you count by insurer group. The top five groups filed 71.6% of first liability filings, and the top two alone filed 65.9%. Ten groups covered 78.0%.

Now count it a different way, by each legal company as it appears on the filings, and the picture loosens up. At that level, the top five filing companies covered 38.4%. The single company that filed the most was United Financial Casualty Company (1,363 filings, or 12.6%), then GEICO Marine Insurance Company (985, 9.1%) and Artisan and Truckers Casualty Company (844, 7.8%).

If you've never heard of United Financial Casualty, you're in good company, and it's the reason the next section exists.

One more cut: about 8.7% of first filings (941) came from a company whose filed name includes "Risk Retention Group" or "RRG." Two of those, Universal Casualty and CarrierGuard Transportation, made the top ten on their own.

Why does Progressive file under so many names?

Because one insurer group can file through many separate companies, and the filings show the company, not the parent. So if you want to count "Progressive," you first have to decide what Progressive is.

Here's what we decided. We put 18 filing companies in the Progressive group: every company whose filed name includes "Progressive," plus United Financial Casualty Company, Artisan and Truckers Casualty Company and Drive New Jersey Insurance Company, which Progressive lists as subsidiaries in its 2025 annual report, Exhibit 21. A new carrier might have a Progressive policy and a filing that never says "Progressive" anywhere on it.

One caveat: Progressive County Mutual isn't on that subsidiary list. We grouped it by its name. The GEICO group is the three filing companies whose names include "GEICO": GEICO Marine, GEICO County Mutual and GEICO General.

And Berkshire Hathaway Direct and Berkshire Hathaway Homestate stay separate, even though you could argue about it. We grouped by name and filing brand, and stopped there. If we'd started following ownership all the way up, we'd have ended up doing corporate genealogy instead of counting truck insurance.

We also merged spelling variants of the same company, like "Great West Casualty Co" and "Great West Casualty Company." A filing database is where you learn how many ways there are to abbreviate "Company."

Did the pattern hold month to month?

Pretty much. Here's the share for each application month, July through September 2026:

• July applicants (4,518 with a named filing): Progressive group 51.2%, GEICO 13.7%, top five 71.0%.
• August applicants (4,053): Progressive group 52.2%, GEICO 13.5%, top five 71.4%.
• September applicants (2,213): Progressive group 53.4%, GEICO 14.9%, top five 74.6%.

September looks a bit more concentrated, and you should hold that loosely. September applicants have had less time to buy insurance, so that group is smaller and may shift as more of them file. Great West Casualty, Universal Casualty RRG, Old Republic and Accredited Specialty stayed in or near the top six in all three months.

How much coverage did new carriers file?

Mostly $750,000. Of the 10,795 first filings in the cohort, 76.9% showed $750,000, 17.6% showed $1,000,000 and 5.2% showed $300,000. The $300,000 tier is the federal minimum for fleets of only vehicles under 10,001 pounds, per 49 CFR 387.303. For what each tier covers and when you need it, see our guide to FMCSA insurance requirements for a new authority.

What does this mean if you're shopping for insurance?

Say you just got your MC number and you're calling around for your first policy. One insurer turns you down. It's easy to read that as a verdict on your whole company.

The filings suggest you shouldn't. Most new carriers did end up with a policy from a short list of insurers, but more than one in five first filings came from outside the top ten: 2,374 of them, spread across 215 groups. Those insurers are writing new authorities, and the public record shows it. One plausible reason a new carrier gets turned down is the obvious one, that a new company has no loss history for anyone to look at. Whatever the reason, one "no" covers one insurer.

Now the part this data can't do. It can't tell you who's cheapest. A filing is proof that a policy exists, and it's silent on price, in the way a marriage license is silent on whether the wedding was any good. For cost ranges from named public sources, read how much truck insurance costs for a new authority. When you're ready to shop, you can get quotes from agencies that write new authorities with one form.

Want the forms behind these filings? Here's the difference between a BMC-91 and a BMC-91X. If your filing shows but your MC hasn't moved, see what to check when insurance is filed but your MC is still pending.

The odd lesson of 10,784 filings is that a market can be dominated by one name and still have room in it. Progressive filed 5,611 of these first policies, which is a lot. But you're only buying one policy, and the 200-plus other insurers in the record only need to include one that says yes.

How we counted

• The source is public FMCSA Licensing and Insurance records published on the U.S. DOT open data portal: authority history, daily insurance changes, and the Motus Insur dataset, which includes the insurance company name on each filing. First Load stores these records nightly.
• The cohort is the 25,705 carriers whose property-carrier authority (motor carrier of property, except household goods) first showed as pending with status "Initial Status" between Jul 1 and Sep 30, 2026. Of them, 10,795 had a BMC-91X or BMC-91 liability filing dated on or after that application date, as of Oct 13, 2026.
• We counted one filing per carrier: the earliest BMC-91X or BMC-91 filing by transaction date. Later filings, replacement filings and cargo filings weren't counted. 10,464 first filings were BMC-91X and 320 were BMC-91.
• For about a third of filings, the daily change feed we store didn't carry the insurer name. We looked those up by USDOT number in the Motus Insur dataset and used the filing that matched the transaction date, or the earliest one. 11 carriers still had no name and were left out, which is why shares use 10,784.
• Names were trimmed and case-matched. Progressive and GEICO were grouped as described above. Everything else is counted as the company name on the filing.
• There are limits. A filing shows which company filed proof of liability coverage with FMCSA. It doesn't show price, policy terms, the agency that sold it, or quality. Counts are first filings for new property carriers only, not market share of premium. Carriers that applied but never filed insurance aren't in the shares.

First Load is a private company, not FMCSA. We don't rate insurers, rank them or recommend them.

Frequently asked questions

What insurance companies insure new authority trucking companies?

Progressive more than anyone, then GEICO. In the public FMCSA record for carriers that applied Jul 1 to Sep 30, 2026, Progressive companies filed 52.0% of first liability filings and GEICO companies 13.9%. Great West Casualty, Universal Casualty RRG and Old Republic came next, and more than 200 insurer groups filed at least once.

Does Progressive insure new authorities?

The public record says yes, a lot of them. Progressive group companies, including United Financial Casualty Company and Artisan and Truckers Casualty Company, filed the first liability filing for 5,611 of the 10,784 carriers in our 2026 cohort. Whether they'll write your policy depends on your own details.

Is the insurer that files the most the cheapest?

Maybe, maybe not, and this data can't tell you. A filing only shows who wrote the policy. Price depends on your equipment, your driving record, your cargo and where you run, so compare quotes for your own situation.

Where does this data come from?

From public FMCSA Licensing and Insurance records on the U.S. DOT open data portal, which First Load stores nightly. We counted each new carrier's first BMC-91X or BMC-91 filing and the insurer named on it.

Who files the BMC-91X: me or my insurer?

Your insurer files it with FMCSA. Federal rules say the certificate has to be in the form FMCSA prescribes (49 CFR 387.313). You can confirm it landed by checking your record after your insurer tells you it's filed.

Sources

• U.S. DOT open data: Motus Insur, All With History (insurance company name per filing, checked October 13, 2026)
• The Progressive Corporation, Form 10-K for 2025, Exhibit 21: subsidiaries
• eCFR: 49 CFR Part 387 (387.303 minimum limits, 387.313 forms)
• First Load data: FMCSA public authority and insurance records, stored nightly by First Load since July 2026. Counts as of October 13, 2026.

Last verified 2026-10-13 · First Load editorial · First Load is a private company, not FMCSA. The public record can lag and other requirements or holds may not show in it.