If you own a trucking company, whether it's big or small, you need to keep your costs down. Part of those costs include the price you pay for your commercial truck insurance. You don't want to pay any more than you need to to protect yourself from liability. Part of reducing your costs depends on you. Here are four steps you can take to keep your insurance rates low.

Maintain Your Trucks

When it comes to keeping your insurance rates low, one of the most important steps you can take is ensuring that your trucks are well-maintained. A well-maintained truck is less-likely to experience failure on the road that could lead to accidents. Create a maintenance routine for your trucks, and enforce it. This will ensure that the trucks you have on the road are safe to be there.

Enforce Driver Safety Rules

Whether you employ long-haul drivers, or short-distance drivers, you know how important following those safety rules are. However, in order to follow them, drivers need to know that you have a set of safety rules in place, and that you enforce them. To keep your insurance rates low, make sure that you have safety rules in place for your drivers to follow. The first rule should be that all your drivers begin each day well-rested. If you employ long-distance drivers, make sure that they pull over to sleep before they reach the final stages where fatigue sets in.

Provide Proper Training

It's not enough that your drivers go through the required training to become truck drivers. Your drivers need to be given the opportunity for additional training, and refresher courses. Requiring continuous training for your drivers will ensure that they're kept up-to-date of law changes, and that they're reminded of important safety guidelines surrounding their profession. For best result, ensure that each of your drivers takes a safety class at least once a year.

Monitor Those Driving Records

Your drivers are on the road every day. It's not enough that you check their driving records at the time of hire, and then forget about them. Driving records can change, and so can your drivers. Unfortunately, if you don't know what your drivers records look like past the date-of-hire, you could have unsafe drivers working for you. At least once a year, pull your drivers records, and make sure they're still clean.

Don't pay more for your trucking insurance than you need to. Use the tips provided here to keep your commercial truck rates as low as possible.

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