Commercial auto is where the rate pressure landed in the Southeast this month — and truck-heavy fleets are taking the hit.
Three approved commercial-auto increases cleared our screen in May: high-impact, rate-increase filings touching 1,000+ policyholders each. Workers comp, by contrast, is quiet — bureau loss costs are trending down across the region and the approved WC moves were favorable or neutral. Here's what your fleet clients are about to feel.
Industries in this issue's filings
Lead Filing
Shelter's 15.6% Mississippi auto hike hides a 24.6% reality for truck fleets
Approved May 29, effective July 22. Shelter General takes 15.6% across its Mississippi commercial-auto book — 2,349 policyholders, $8.2M in premium — but liability-heavy truck fleets absorb roughly 24.6% as bodily-injury and property-damage base rates climb and increased-limit factors rise for every limit at or above $300,000. This is Shelter's second Mississippi auto increase in under a year, which tells you the carrier doesn't think it's caught up to claim-severity inflation yet.
Fleets carrying higher liability limits get hit twice — base rates and the ILF surcharge stack. If a client runs trucks in Mississippi on Shelter paper, the renewal math is worse than the headline.
Also Approved This Cycle
The Hanover prices Georgia fleets by the mile — +17.9% and climbing for high-mileage books
A new Annual Mileage Group variable reshapes Hanover's Georgia commercial-auto pricing for an ~17.9% overall lift (ISO loss costs +14.9%, increased-limit factors +4.8%). Fleets of 10-19 units get reclassified into pricier 'pricing avenues,' and truck, tractor and trailer classes in Territory Group 1 see liability up ~20%, physical damage ~13%. High-utilization fleets pay the most.
SECURA resets Kentucky loss-cost multipliers — ag, dealers and public auto feel it most
SECURA adopts ISO's revised commercial-auto loss costs and rebuilds its Kentucky multipliers for a ~13% overall increase. The pain isn't even: public-auto multipliers reach 4.56, agribusiness physical damage hits 3.13, and auto-dealer liability runs to 3.38. The carrier also withdrew its logging and lumbering class for lack of use — those risks need a new home.
Why no workers comp story this month?
Because there genuinely isn't one. Every WC rate increase that cleared in the Southeast in May was either small, favorable, or fell below our impact bar — NCCI loss costs are drifting down across most of the region, and the large approved WC actions were loss-cost-multiplier cuts and dividend plans, not increases. The story this month is commercial auto, and it's concentrated in truck-heavy books. When WC premium does rise for a client in a softening market, it'll be a multiplier or tiering move — worth flagging, but it didn't happen at scale in May.
Package and businessowners carriers are re-pricing Main Street — and the indicated numbers say there's more coming.
Same screen, every other commercial line: businessowners, commercial package and specialty liability filings dominate the Southeast's May list. The throughline is the gap between what carriers took and what they said they need — several are phasing in increases against double-digit indicated shortfalls, so this month's number is rarely the last.
Industries in this issue's filings
Lead Filing
Allstate raises Kentucky landlord rates 18% — 8,262 policyholders, one flat factor
Approved May 1, effective June 8. The region's largest wider-market filing by headcount: Allstate Indemnity lifts its Kentucky Landlords Package program ~18% across the board through a single uniform Rate Adjustment Factor — 8,262 habitational policyholders, no carve-outs. The carrier cites weather-loss severity (wind, hail, lightning), rising fire, theft and liability trends, and a higher net cost of catastrophe reinsurance it's passing straight through.
There's nowhere to hide in a uniform factor: every landlord in the book gets the same ~18% regardless of loss history. Rental-property owners running thin cash-flow margins should hear this before the renewal lands.
Three Filings Worth a Closer Look
CNA takes 7.5% in Alabama — but its model says it needs 34.5%, and some renewals jump 86%
CNA's refreshed predictive model carries a +34.5% indicated need on its Alabama businessowners book. It's taking only 7.5% now and phasing the rest through a transition rule of roughly 20% a year. Individual accounts swing hard — Continental Casualty renewals up to 86.6%, American Casualty to 65.2%. A 34% rate deficit usually means more increases or non-renewals are coming.
Midvale puts the squeeze on Georgia restaurants that deliver — liability +35.6%
Midvale takes 12% on its Georgia BOP book against a 24.6% indicated need, with the liability component up 35.6% and a pointed re-rate of hired and non-owned auto for restaurants that run their own food delivery. Class modification factors also climb for fast food, nail salons, variety stores and auto body shops — where the building factor reaches 4.23.
The Hartford's Alabama Spectrum re-rate punishes the coast and real estate
Market-group factors push real estate to 1.79x and habitational to 1.62x, while a new 'distance to coast' multiplier adds 30%+ within 1,000 feet of the Alabama shoreline. Quietly, a roof-value scheduled-settlement rule and a cosmetic-metal-roof exclusion swap replacement cost for actual cash value — and a 1000% factor lands on high-value medical equipment.
The Rest of the Qualifying List
| State | Carrier | Line / Sub-type | Severity | Policyholders | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AL | Courtesy Insurance | Contractual — Used-Vehicle Warranty | 5 / 5 | n/d | May 8, 2026 |
| MS | Seneca Insurance (Fairfax) | General Liability — monoline minimums | 4 / 5 | 29 | Aug 1, 2026 |
| TN | Harford Mutual (1842 Ins) | Businessowners | 4 / 5 | 384 | Jun 1, 2026 |
| GA | MGT Group | Businessowners | 4 / 5 | 54 | Sep 1, 2026 |
Also on the radar
Personal lines sit outside our commercial screen but the reach is hard to ignore: a wave of personal-umbrella rate increases and exits cleared across the Southeast in May — 26,470 policyholders in NC (approved May 8), 13,886 in SC (a severity-5 increase, May 21), 8,058 and 6,964 in GA (May 1 and May 28), plus two GA personal-umbrella market exits (May 5). High-net-worth clients with umbrella coverage are re-shopping right now. On the commercial side, Courtesy doubled used-vehicle warranty rates (up to +100% on older inventory) — a direct hit to Alabama auto-dealer F&I margins.
The structural moves are the real story this month: carriers are exiting trucking, scoring your credit, and quietly rewriting what's covered.
Same region, the changes a rate percentage won't show you: approved May actions whose substance is a market exit, a new scoring algorithm, or a coverage cut. Two themes dominate — for-hire trucking carriers heading for the exits, and third-party predictive scoring (credit, roof age, mileage) arriving across auto and businessowners lines.
Industries in this page's filings
Lead Filing · Market-Wide Signal
Shelter exits for-hire trucking in two Southeast states at once — and cancels the federal filings on the way out
Approved May 26 (KY) and May 5 (MS), effective Aug 1. Shelter General is discontinuing its for-hire 'Truckmen' product line entirely — non-renewing all 475 Kentucky and 958 Mississippi motor-carrier policies and cancelling the associated MCS-90 and state/federal filings at expiration. The stated reason isn't loss experience; it's a Guidewire platform migration the carrier decided wasn't worth rebuilding the trucking book for.
That distinction matters: this isn't a market repricing, it's 1,433 motor carriers losing a home for reasons that have nothing to do with their own records. And because the federal filings drop at non-renewal, an owner-operator who lets coverage lapse can lose operating authority. These accounts are shopping now — and the replacement market for for-hire trucking is tight.
New Scoring Models — The Trend Is Real
CNA's predictive model swings Alabama BOP renewals up to 86.6%
Behind CNA's modest 7.5% average is a refreshed multivariate model with a 34.5% indicated need — and individual Alabama accounts moving as much as 86.6% as the algorithm re-sorts the book. A four-year transition rule of ~20%/yr is the only thing holding the rest back. The model, not the average, decides your client's renewal.
Church Mutual rates your credit, your roof age, and your ZIP
Predictive Model 3.0 adds Experian IntelliScore Plus credit scoring, Guidewire HazardHub geographic scoring, and a new Roof Age variable to Georgia general liability. The statewide change is ~0%, but churches, schools, nonprofits and care facilities can swing double digits on factors they can't see — a clean-loss-history account can still pay more.
EMC brings a 30-tier model to North Carolina — with a $5,000 unreported-driver trap
EMC's twin North Carolina filings rebuild commercial auto and businessowners on a 30-tier GLM. The auto program adds a mileage factor and a $5,000 liability deductible for accidents involving drivers not reported within 60 days; the BOP program mandates actual-cash-value settlement on roofs 15+ years old. Sold as 'good,' but the fine print bites high-turnover and older-roof risks.
Underwriting Guideline Changes
Berkshire Hathaway: new drivers have no coverage until the carrier says so
Berkshire Hathaway Direct restricts its Alabama business-auto 'who is an insured' to pre-approved drivers only — hire someone, let them drive before written acceptance, and a claim has no coverage. The same filing adds a total exclusion for any boom, bucket, crane or rig, swaps in a total pollution exclusion, and caps physical-damage payouts at 'prevailing competitive price' with no diminution in value. Contractor and trades fleets carry the gap.
Harford Mutual: a 2x audit penalty, and the inflation guard is gone
Harford Mutual reprices its Tennessee BOP on new ISO loss costs and pulls back 'Class of Business' credits for restaurants, hotels and plumbing/electrical contractors — its named underperformers. The fine print is heavier: a 2.0x audit-noncompliance factor that can double estimated premium, removal of the automatic-increase (inflation-guard) provision, and new mandatory drone, PFAS and human-trafficking exclusions.
Coverage Contraction
Great American bans electric and hybrid trucks outright in Louisiana
A mandatory exclusion strips all liability and physical-damage coverage for zero-emission and hybrid trucks — including plug-in hybrids — in Great American's Louisiana non-trucking program, and redefines the scheduled-auto symbol so even a listed EV is excluded. The carrier's stated reason: it has no rates to price them yet. Owner-operators adding a green rig mid-term may be running bare without knowing it.
Triangle exits motor carrier and excludes generative AI
Triangle pulls all motor-carrier language from its Tennessee agribusiness package and layers on mandatory exclusions for generative AI, assault-or-battery (reaching negligent-hiring and supervision claims) and human trafficking, plus a tighter business-income restoration window. A few favorable farm tweaks — cottonseed ground storage, USDA grain-tarp relief — soften the edges for ag accounts.
MGT excludes delivery work and charges by the gas pump
MGT's Georgia BOP filing is a stack of fees and carve-outs: a 50% professional-liability increase for beauty salons, 'Age of Business' surcharges on ventures under two years, per-bay car-wash and $25 per-gas-pump charges, a new exclusion for all food and retail delivery operations, and a 3% credit-card processing fee that's a hidden rate increase for most insureds.
Also on the radar
The trucking exits aren't isolated: Triangle Insurance is also leaving the motor-carrier market in Tennessee (above), and FCCI sunset its NUCA utility-contractor dividend program in Alabama while attaching mandatory asbestos and lead exclusions. On the scoring front, Crum & Forster adopted ISO's New Class Plan in North Carolina commercial auto (North River paper averaging +36.3%), corroborating the predictive-rating wave. And note the roof-age theme running through the issue — EMC, Church Mutual, Harford Mutual and The Hartford all moved to ACV settlement, cosmetic-damage exclusions, or roof-age rating in May. Older-roof buildings are quietly losing replacement cost across multiple carriers.
