Commercial auto insurance on a delivery van is running $14,000 per year right now. That's the current figure from the CIAB/MarketScout quarterly commercial auto survey, compiled in Q1 2026 — near the 75th percentile of the five-year premium range. If your fleet budget uses $10,000 or $12,000 per van, you're $2,000 to $4,000 per vehicle behind. On 25 vans, that's a $50,000 to $100,000 annual gap in your model.
The backdrop: commercial auto insurance has increased every single quarter for six years straight. The CIAB Q4 2025 survey confirmed a 7.5% rate increase — the 24th consecutive quarter of rises. The driver isn't accident frequency; it's litigation cost. Nuclear verdicts against commercial vehicle operators hit 135 cases totaling $31.3 billion in 2024, per Risk & Insurance magazine. Median nuclear verdict went from $21 million in 2020 to $51 million last year. Insurers are repricing for a litigation environment that looks completely different than what existed when your operation started.
Two things to do right now. First, pull your current per-van annual premium and compare it against $14,000. If you're significantly above that without a recent at-fault claim on record, that's worth a conversation with your broker. If you haven't updated your operating model since 2023, the insurance line alone may have moved enough to materially misrepresent your actual cost per stop. Second, if you have a renewal coming in the next 90 days, don't accept the quote without benchmarking it — the CIAB data suggests the structural upward trend isn't done, so knowing where you sit in the range matters.
The fleet cost line that gets reviewed once a year at renewal is one of the fastest-moving items in your entire P&L right now.
(Sources: CIAB/MarketScout Q1 2026 via Pexara fleet benchmark data; CIAB Q4 2025 Commercial P/C Market Survey; Risk & Insurance magazine 2024)