Trucking and fleet rates open 2026 climbing across the Midwest — and the rating math is changing underneath them.
Two commercial-auto increases cleared our screen this cycle: approved in January, unfavorable, high-severity, touching 1,000+ policyholders each. Both are trucking-and-fleet books, and both pair the rate hike with a new way of pricing you. Here's what your clients are about to feel.
Industries in this issue's filings
Lead Filing
Great West's 14% Kansas trucking hike hides a 38.5% reality for small fleets
Approved Jan 30, effective May 1. Great West repriced its $33.6M Kansas trucking book — 1,206 policyholders — at a 14% average, but the structure is where it bites: primary liability, PIP and medical-payments base rates jump 20.2%, and the size multiplier for 2-to-4-unit fleets climbs roughly 9%. Dumping operations get singled out, their multiplier raised from 1.08 to 1.18. Maximum individual impact filed: 38.5%.
This is a true motor-carrier filing (SERFF sub-type Truckers, NAICS 484), so the language fits: small for-hire fleets in metro territories carry the heaviest load.
Also Approved This Cycle
State Farm adds telematics surcharge to a 21,180-policy Missouri book
A ~10% average increase, but trucking renewals can swing up to 50%. Uninsured BI rises 17.3%, and a new Drive Safe & Save Business telematics program starts at a 5% discount and can surcharge up to 15% on how your crew drives. A revised Customer Rating Index resets the baseline.
Why only two auto stories — and no workers comp?
The Midwest/NW page-1 screen is genuinely quiet on rate this month. Workers comp here runs through NCCI loss-cost adoptions and tier programs that were favorable or neutral for policyholders in January — no qualifying WC rate increase cleared the bar. Commercial auto is the live wire, and the real story isn't the headline percentage: it's the scoring models and telematics now riding underneath the rate. Three of those are on page 3.
The package and habitational market is repricing landlords and Main Street.
Same screen, every other commercial line: the qualifying rate increases this cycle center on businessowners and habitational risk. The headline is American Family resetting Kansas landlord pricing — and quietly removing the deductible option that used to soften the blow.
Industries in this issue's filings
Lead Filing
American Family raises Kansas rental dwellings 24.7% — and drops the $500 deductible
Approved Jan 9, effective May 1. The region's largest qualifying package filing this cycle: 3,216 Kansas Fusion BOP policyholders, $10.2M in premium. Rental-dwelling base rates rise an average 24.7% — some landlords up to 56% — and office buildings climb 11.6%. The quieter move is the coverage cut: the $500 Loss Assessment deductible is eliminated, forcing $1,000 or $2,500 minimums. The carrier's indicated need was 20.4%, so this is a catch-up, not a one-off.
Who feels it: landlords, condo and rental-dwelling owners, and small office/mercantile risks. Move now: re-quote habitational accounts before the May effective date and flag the deductible change — it raises out-of-pocket risk even where the rate looks manageable.
Worth a Closer Look
Berkley reprices high-hazard counseling abuse cover +23.1%
Berkley Regional raised base rates 23.1% on a small Kansas abuse-liability program and moved Class 7 high-hazard counseling (drug dependency, physical and sexual abuse) from 1.2x to 1.5x of Class 6 — individual increases up to 54.6% on a class flagged as a six-year loss outlier.
The Rest of the Qualifying List
| State | Carrier | Line / Sub-type | Severity | Policyholders | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KS | Berkley (Riverport / Berkley Natl) | Other Liability — Abuse program | 4 / 5 | 18 | May 1, 2026 |
Also on the radar
Two big-reach moves just miss our commercial bar but reset budgets: a Missouri personal-umbrella increase touching 31,713 policyholders (approved Jan 30) and a Kansas personal-umbrella filing at 52,155 policyholders — both personal lines, but a signal the umbrella market is hardening regionally. And a 13,336-policyholder Missouri workers-comp tiering revision (Jan-effective) is neutral on average yet reshuffles experience tiers — the kind of change that raises a client's comp premium while the bureau softens.
The real January story isn't the rate — it's the third-party data quietly pricing your fleet.
Same six states, the structural changes the rate filings hide: scoring models, credit-based tiering, and new exclusions approved in January. Four verified scoring or credit-tiering filings this window — LexisNexis, CAB and TransUnion data are now openly pricing Midwest commercial risk.
Industries in this page's filings
Lead Filing · Scoring Model — Market Signal
State Farm puts a telematics dial on 21,180 Missouri fleets — and a CRI rescore underneath
Approved Jan 29, effective Dec 29. Beyond its ~10% rate move, State Farm introduced Drive Safe & Save Business: a telematics program that uses smartphone and device data to swing premium from a 5% starting discount to a 15% surcharge based on driving index scores. In the same filing, the Customer Rating Index factors for commercial vehicles were rebuilt — a quiet rescore that moves premium before any single client changes behavior. When the largest commercial auto writer in the state hard-wires telematics into pricing, every adopting competitor's renewal conversation changes too.
New Scoring Models — The Trend Is Real
Nationwide Agribusiness scores farm fleets on credit and driver data
A new LexisNexis risk-score segmentation plan can swing farm-auto premium up to 9.5%, and a driver-based plan now rates on age, gender and violation history. New PFAS, communicable-disease and cannabis exclusions ride along — and a single-deductible endorsement ties farm property and auto together.
National General launches a GLM trucking program built on CAB and LexisNexis
The new CRAD 3.0 program rates Iowa commercial auto on the LexisNexis C118 driver model, CAB trucking factors and TransUnion credit — a genuine bright spot for clean fleets, but vehicle-history factors run to 1.79 and drivers under 21 carry a 5.20 factor. Third-party data, in both directions.
Great West retiers small Kansas fleets
Behind the 14% headline (page 1) sits a tiering revision: policy-size multipliers and type-of-operation factors rebuilt so 2-to-4-unit fleets and dumping operations absorb the steepest moves. The structure, not the average, is what your small-fleet clients will feel.
Underwriting & Tiering Changes
Nationwide Agribusiness ties farm property and auto to one deductible
Farm operations carrying both property and auto with the group now fall under a mandatory single-deductible endorsement — one event triggers the largest single deductible instead of two. Favorable for bundled farms, but it changes how a claim is settled, so confirm which clients are in scope before renewal.
Berkley reclasses high-hazard counseling exposure
A tiering revision moves Class 7 high-hazard counseling to 1.5x Class 6 rates and lifts base rates 23.1% — the abuse-claims environment, repriced. Social-service and counseling accounts should expect the reclass to outrun the headline number.
Coverage Contraction
Nationwide Agribusiness adds PFAS, cannabis and disease exclusions
Alongside the new scoring, the Missouri farm-auto filing adds a PFAS exclusion, a communicable-disease exclusion and cannabis exclusion endorsements. For ag operations handling chemicals and crop inputs, the 'forever chemicals' carve-out is the one to read closely.
American Family strips the $500 loss-assessment deductible
Behind the 24.7% rental-dwelling rate move (page 2), the $500 Loss Assessment deductible option is gone — replaced by mandatory $1,000 and $2,500 minimums. A coverage contraction stacked on a rate hike: the out-of-pocket exposure rises even where the premium looks contained.
Also on the radar
A genuine bright spot: National General's new Iowa CRAD 3.0 program rewards clean trucking books with CAB-driven pricing — an appetite worth shopping for safe fleets. Meanwhile the scoring wave is regional, not isolated: LexisNexis and credit data now price farm auto in Missouri, fleets in Iowa, and small fleets in Kansas in the same month. When three carriers reach for third-party data at once, the floor moves for everyone adopting it.
