Top Trucking Insurance Agent in Chicago – What You Need To Look For
It’s no doubt that insurance is a large portion of a trucking company’s overhead so you want to feel confident in knowing that you have the right insurance agent on your side. Having a great insurance agent on your side can be a tremendous asset to your company, especially if (better yet when) a claim arises. We’ve found that the opposite is also true, an inexperienced and unreliable agent can cost you money, but more so, cost you a lot of downtime. You need to keep your trucks on the road earning money so having the top trucking insurance agent in Chicago on your side is what you need.
With over 30 years of commercial trucking experience, we have a solid understanding of your industry, and of ours. We have built up solid relationships with many insurance carriers, so that you can leverage our relationships, but also so that we can be persuasive if needed, or stand up and help fight for you if claims get denied. Being a great trucking insurance agent in Chicago is not just about having access to markets, but it’s also about understanding what you insurance carriers are looking for in a risk (you). Since not every insurance company is created equal, we’ll help guide you through the pros and cons so that you pick the right one for your business needs.
Lines of Coverage You Need
If you’re a new venture in Illinois and you want to get your authority active with the FMCSA, they will have certain minimum insurance requirements that you’ll have to meet before they flip the switch. Depending on the type of hauling you’ll be doing, they’ll require certain limits of liability, but the most common that we see is for $750,000 of commercial auto liability coverage. If you’re hauling automobiles or other hazardous material then you may have a higher requirement. A good trucking agent will know that even though the minimum required through the FMCSA is $750k, your shippers are still going to demand that you carry $1M in coverage before they release their load to you. If you’re up in the air about only carrying the minimum requirement then we urge you to highly reconsider because you’ll be calling back the next day frustrated that no one will give you a load.
Unless it’s because of contractual reasons, in Chicago and the state of Illinois, you only need to carry liability insurance to get your authority active. Our agency has relationships with commercial trucking insurance companies throughout the country, each one having their own set of criteria and appetite, and each one having their place in the insurance market. We have insurance companies that can get extremely aggressive with pricing for the good risks and also markets that can get creative and flexible for trucking companies with previous claim history, drivers with blemishes on their records, or CAB reports that aren’t stellar. Give us a call for a quote, we’d be happy to walk you through the process, and we’ll do our very best to get you the most competitive terms in the marketplace.
Types of Commercial Auto Policies We Can Help With
As one of the top trucking insurance agents in Chicago, we understand that your business will need more than just auto liability coverage, and we’re not just a one trick pony either. We can help you place all the insurance your company needs. From liability, cargo, physical damage coverage, to general liability, trailer interchange, hired and non-owned auto, workers compensation coverage and much more. Our carriers can package everything together or place the coverage a-la-carte. The option is yours.
Top 5 Reasons To Place Your Commercial Trucking Policy With Our Agency
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- Experience – you can’t fake experience and you can tell that a lot of other insurance agents in Chicago are trying to dabble in so many lines of insurance that they aren’t experts in the commercial trucking space. We’ve been solely dedicated to the commercial trucking market and we want to show you that we know our craft. Our relationships continue to flourish every day and our knowledge of the insurance market shows through the quotes we’re able to obtain
- Full time staff – sometimes you just need things to get done quickly and we have a full staff that is available to help you out. If you’re lined up to take a load but you need a certificate of insurance in a rush, we have a team that can address that for you in a matter of minutes. If you’re unclear about your financing we have a department that can clear that up for you, if you need to talk about coverage then we have an experienced agent that can get you the right information and provide you a competitive quote. We’re your one stop shop.
- Access to markets – a typical insurance agency may have access to 1 or 2 markets in the commercial trucking space, if that. Many of them “dabble” but have no specialty. Is that who you prefer to deal with?
- Claims assistance – we hear it time and time again from clients who move to our agency that their previous agent wasn’t there for them when they needed them. After placing their business with the insurance agent for years, they never cared to call and make sure the claim was processed properly or to see if they could provide some help. We don’t like to operate that way and we know that one of the best ways to prove our value is during your time of need. We’ll help your insurance claim get pushed through as best as we can.
- We get results, we do what we say – there is nothing that frustrates us more than hearing that our prospective clients will not be doing business with us because another agent promised results that they could not deliver. It happens all too often where the client calls back a month or two later and needs our help to get them out of their current situation. Of course it’s more difficult, but we do everything we can.
As a commercial trucking insurance agent in Chicago, we understand that insurance is a major expense to your business and we also understand that it can be a tricky path to navigate, but with our expertise and knowledge of the marketplace, along with our relationships, we try our very best to get you the most competitive terms in the market while guiding you through the entire process. Not only that, but we also have a full staff to support your needs once your policy has been put in place.
Give us a call today to speak with us!