Landstar Cut 35,000 Carriers. Then Its Insurance Renewed Flat
I was involved in the insurance industry before I developed freight technology, and even now I review market reports as an underwriter would. The 2026 reports contain a point worth giving some thought to: the difference between what a well-run operation pays and what a troubled one pays has never been greater, and the factor that determines which side you end up on is increasingly the data you can provide on how you run your business.
The situation is not the one most fleets are prepared for.
What the Market Actually Looks Like
Begin with commercial auto, since this sets the tone for all the other areas. According to AM Best data, the segment has consistently maintained a combined ratio above 100%, meaning insurers have been paying out more than they have received each year. The rates for the primary layer are usually between 7% and 12%, and Amwins notes that there have been double-digit increases in most of the segment. However, loss costs are rising at a comparable rate, so the rate increases are not solving the problem; they are merely keeping up with it.
It is the capacity that operators notice first. Insurers that previously offered primary limits of $5 million now typically use limits ranging from $1 million to $3 million, so in order to achieve the same level of coverage, you have to spread it across more markets. This results in more layers, more negotiations, higher costs, and a more difficult placement if your loss history is not clean.
Excess remains even more tightly structured in the layers just above the primary level. Most insurance companies are limiting participation to tranches ranging from $2 million to $3 million, thus further fragmenting the towers. Rate adjustments ranging from $5 million to $20 million vary from 5% to 20% or more, depending on losses and the level of exposure. Above $20 million, the pressure lessens a bit, though this is little consolation unless you are large enough to reach that level.
Workers’ compensation is the best area, since the rates are level or even falling, the capacity is good, and a number of insurers still want to offer it together with your auto insurance because it helps to balance their portfolio. When you are in negotiations, that combination should be treated as a source of leverage.
Insurance is one more cost moving in the wrong direction at the same time as everything else. We covered the wider squeeze in our 2026 mid-year market update, and the ATRI cost study found that insurance premiums were among the fastest-rising line items in the total cost per mile.
The Line Between Preferred and Distressed
The reports also indicate that the market desires stable and predictable insureds and is willing to compete fiercely for them.
According to Amwins, preferred trucking is a competitive field in which carriers are striving for market share. The same report also examines the situation on the other side of that line, showing that businesses with seasonal drivers or high rates of driver and vehicle turnover are being affected particularly severely. Operations that have lost their preferred eligibility are now turning to captives and alternative risk transfer since the standard market has stopped bidding.
People are now quite sensitive to frequency, a fact that astonishes many. In certain areas of the Southeast, it is almost impossible to obtain coverage for accounts that have less than five or six years’ experience, and any accounts that have suffered losses, no matter how small, are subjected to close examination since frequency is now seen as an indication of management performance rather than simply bad luck. There are only a few active underwriters in New York, California, Texas, and Illinois. The casualty market in New Jersey is said to be essentially nonexistent due to claim frequency and the $1.5 million limit requirement.
The difference between a clean and well-documented operation and a messy one is not 10%. It is the difference between having a competitive bid and having no bid.
The same sorting is happening inside freight networks, not only inside insurance towers but also inside freight networks. Landstar disclosed on its second-quarter earnings call that it has cut more than 35,000 carriers from its approved network, taking the pool from over 100,000 in mid-2022 down to roughly 64,000, a reduction of about 35%. Matt Miller, the company’s vice president and chief safety and operations officer, said the effort has been driven by safety, security, and service, and that there are no plans to ease the scrutiny. The purge began in response to cargo theft and freight fraud and accelerated as broker liability grew.
Read that alongside your renewal. Underwriters are deciding which fleets to price, and brokerages are deciding which carriers to load. Both decisions run on the same inputs: your safety record, your loss frequency, and your ability to document how you operate. It is the same slow decay we described in network drift, seen from the underwriter’s chair instead of the broker’s.
Telematics Stopped Being a Checkbox
The most important of all these changes is the one that most fleets have not taken into account.
For many years, having telematics was a necessary condition for market access. All you had to do was show the underwriter that you possessed ELDs and cameras, tick the box, and that was that. That time is now ended. Today’s underwriters are concerned with how data is used, not just that it is collected. Programs that demonstrate active use of the data, such as driver coaching, documented safety interventions, and ongoing performance tracking, are likely to achieve better results than programs that have merely installed the hardware.
Amwins also reports that a large number of carriers nowadays draw up policy structures that require insureds to keep and share their ELD and telematics data for the entire duration of the policy. In effect, your data has become a condition of coverage.
The advantage is genuine. A study of the industry found that the use of GPS tracking and dual-facing dashcams cut high-risk driving behaviors by up to 36% and improved claims outcomes by settling disputes more quickly and helping to counter fraudulent claims. However, uptake still varies greatly depending on fleet size, with larger fleets leading the way, so a midsize fleet that demonstrates careful, disciplined use of its data will stand out in a submission.
What underwriters are actually asking is whether the data makes a difference. Has the incident involving hard braking resulted in a coaching session? Has the pattern of late deliveries caused a change to the schedule? Has the detention problem at one customer led to a meeting with that customer? An operation that can answer such questions is telling a story about management, and it is management that is taken into account when setting the price.
None of it works on dirty data, which is the argument we made in Stop Pushing Screens. Data scattered across a dozen disconnected tools cannot produce a clean answer for an underwriter any more than it can for your own operations team.
Cargo Theft Is Rewriting the Policy, Not Only the Premium
For brokers, 3PLs, and all those handling high-value freight, the cargo itself represents a crisis. The figure for losses in 2025 provided by Verisk CargoNet is almost $725 million, a 60% increase over the previous year, and the average amount stolen is $273,990, which is 36% higher than the previous year’s average.
The pattern has changed. Although California remains the leader in volume, activity is now decreasing in Los Angeles County by 11% and increasing in places such as Kern County by 82% and San Joaquin County by 44%. New Jersey has seen an increase of 50%, Indiana 30%, and Pennsylvania 24%. Food and beverage has become the most targeted category with 708 incidents, an increase of 47%, with meat and seafood concentrated in the Northeast and tree nuts on the West Coast. Theft of metal has increased by 77% due to higher demand for copper.
We wrote earlier this year about how theft itself has split into three different crimes: physical interception, insider infiltration, and identity impersonation at the gate, each requiring a different defense. Insurers have reached the same conclusion by a different route.
That is the way insurers usually react. They become stricter with underwriting and begin to alter the language of their policies concerning the risk of theft. Nowadays, there is a significant difference in the coverage offered to different insured parties, and it is precisely the gap between what you believe is covered and what actually is covered that results in the loss. If you have not carefully read over your cargo clause this year, then that hour of your calendar is the most valuable one.
On the legislative front, the Cargo Security Innovation Act, which was introduced by Senators Marsha Blackburn and Amy Klobuchar and backed by the American Trucking Associations, would enhance enforcement by improving data sharing and coordination, including a pilot program to deploy cargo security technology at intermodal hubs. It is worth keeping an eye on, but it will not affect your renewal this cycle.
The Freight Recovery Cuts Both Ways
The spot linehaul rates increased by more than 23% between early 2025 and early 2026, according to U.S. Bank and DAT data, whereas the contract rates rose by about 5%, thus narrowing the gap between the two. Improved revenue enhances the credit quality in the sector, with underwriters preferring financially sound insureds.
Yet underwriters are aware of how a busy market affects behavior. Carriers operate more vigorously, take on routes they are unfamiliar with, and pursue higher-paying shipments into areas where they have little knowledge. Each of these decisions increases exposure. Although freight recovery is beneficial to the company’s profit and loss statement, it is either neutral or negative in terms of risk profile, and the underwriter is charging accordingly.
It is precisely because of that tension that operational data is important. When you are expanding, the only way to keep the risk story free of complications is to demonstrate that you are managing the expansion, not merely going along with it.
Three Seats, One Set of Records
This market reaches every party to a load, and each one is being asked a version of the same question.
Trucking companies and fleets. Your submission is judged on driver turnover, loss frequency, and whether your safety data changed any behavior. Turnover is the quiet killer, since underwriters treat it as a management signal, and detention is one of the things that drives drivers away. The compliance pressure runs alongside it, as we covered in our piece on the non-domiciled CDL crackdown, where the carriers that track the right numbers come out ahead of the ones that panic.
Brokers and 3PLs. Your exposure changed twice this year. Montgomery removed the preemption defense and made thin vetting a direct liability, and then a Dallas jury went further in the $604 million verdict by treating a carrier’s driver as a borrowed employee of the broker. We wrote in June that the renewal letters were coming. They have arrived, and the record of how you vetted each carrier for each load is your answer.
Shippers in distribution and manufacturing. You are in the chain whether you want to be or not. The broker you choose determines how well your freight is vetted, and the carrier they choose determines what shows up at your dock. That is why we argued that on-time performance should determine which brokers and carriers get your freight, and why so many shippers are looking more closely at their own cargo exposure rather than relying on someone else’s liability limits. EKA offers on-demand shippers’ interest cargo insurance for exactly that reason.
Three seats, three different conversations, and one thing in common. Each one is decided by records that either exist or do not.
What to Bring to the Renewal
The fleets and brokers securing the best available terms are taking a similar approach. They enter the situation with a narrative that is both documented and supported by data on how the operation is conducted.
What this entails is a clear record of safety interventions, not just safety data. It means that you should be able to explain your loss runs, specifying the changes made following each incident. It means that you have actual control over the operational factors that influence claims, such as hours-of-service discipline, delivery performance, and detention exposure, and, for brokers, that carrier vetting is carried out continuously rather than merely once during onboarding. Furthermore, it means that your paperwork should correspond with your actual practices, since any discrepancy will be detected in a claim.
Landstar provides the clearest evidence that this works. After four years of removing carriers and tightening its vetting, the company renewed its auto liability coverage effectively flat on June 1, with broker liability up only about 3%, in a market where much of the segment is absorbing double-digit increases. That renewal was earned over four years of documented work, not negotiated in a meeting.
The fee earned by your broker of record is as follows. The market strategy, the tower structure, the decision between standard and alternative risk, and the timing of the submission are all important factors, and I would not offer advice on any of these points. All I can comment on is the operational record behind it, since that is what we focus on.
Where We Fit
The bulk of what an underwriter is looking for can be found in your operating system, distributed among all the tools that you use. That fragmentation is the real problem, the one we described in the supply chain’s dirty secret. We created EKA Omni-TMS with the aim of having it based in a single location.
EKA On-Time AI monitors delivery performance against commitments and identifies any failures before they worsen. EKA Docktime AI records detention because it constitutes both a margin issue and a driver retention issue, and driver turnover is one of the aspects underwriters penalize most severely. Risk and Compliance Guardrails check carriers in real time and stamp each verification with a timestamp, which serves as the record a broker needs following Montgomery and Lipe. EKA Control Center AI brings together exceptions from all these processes so that problems can be addressed while they are still small, as we described in detail in running freight like a real-time control room.
The reason for running it in that way is so that the operation. The renewal benefit is a by-product, and a genuine one, since when the underwriter asks you what you do with your data, you can give them an answer that includes dates.
The Bottom Line
The rates have increased, capacity has decreased, and cargo coverage is becoming more limited. You cannot influence any of those things. All you can control is the quality of the story you present, and in this market that story must be based on data which you can produce as and when required.
Underwriters are pricing management. Run the business well, keep accurate records, and let those records speak for you. Talk to EKA about the record, and talk to your broker about the other matters.
The information in this article is general in nature and relates to market conditions only. It should not be regarded as insurance or legal advice. The rate ranges and market data are based on published industry reports and differ considerably from account to account. You should speak to your existing broker and obtain your own professional advice regarding your particular program.