Commercial Auto Insurance in Florida: Lawsuits, Licensing and the Data

Commercial auto insurance in Florida costs more because commercial auto claims cost more, and the best documented driver of that is litigation, not who holds the license. The licensing problems are real and DOT has documented them. But the numbers behind the price increase point at jury awards, attorney involvement and claims that stay open too long.

AM Best published a report in October on this. Some people point to the licensing problem instead, so I also went to the primary sources on that. Here is what the data supports and what it does not.

What AM Best says is driving the cost

AM Best calls it social inflation: the cost of claims rising faster than the economy because of higher jury awards, more litigation and wider definitions of liability. Commercial auto liability loss payments in the first 12 months grew about 6.4 percent a year from 2014 to 2024. Average economic inflation over the same stretch was 2.8 percent. Carrier Management has the summary, and Insurance Business adds that AM Best put the line's 2024 underwriting loss at $6.4 billion and estimates it is under-reserved by $4 billion to $5 billion.

Two other points from that reporting matter to a business owner:

• Claim frequency, adjusted for settlement rates, also rose over the decade.
• Claims above the typical $1 million limit now spill into umbrella policies, and umbrella pricing has stopped tracking general liability pricing since about 2018.

The Florida numbers

Marathon Strategies counted nearly 200 verdicts of $10 million or more against companies in 2025, about $25.6 billion in total, up 40.7 percent from 2024. Florida accounted for about $2.5 billion of that, per Insurance Journal. For trucking and automotive together, Transport Topics reports $3.4 billion across 12 cases in 2025, against $1.4 billion across 15 cases in 2024. Fewer cases, bigger awards.

Florida's 2023 reform, HB 837, did help. The AM Best coverage says average paid claim severity in Florida has trended down since. Both things are true at once: the reform lowered the routine claims, and the very large verdicts have not gone away.

The licensing question

The common theory is that drivers from other countries who do not understand our traffic laws are behind this, in semi trucks first and now in smaller commercial vehicles. Here is what is documented, as plainly as I can state it.

The license problems are real. DOT's September 2025 rule on non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses, the kind issued to people who live in the U.S. but are not permanent residents, says an audit found about one in four non-domiciled CDLs in California did not meet the requirements. It names Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington as other states that issued them improperly. The rule estimates about 200,000 non-domiciled CDL holders nationwide. It lists five fatal crashes in 2025 involving those drivers, killing 12 people, including the August 12 turnpike crash in Fort Pierce that killed three. The driver in that crash was charged, and charges are not a conviction. (Federal Register)

The final rule is in effect. FMCSA finalized it in February 2026. It limits non-domiciled CDLs to certain work visa categories. A federal appeals court declined in May 2026 to stay it and expedited the case, with oral argument planned for September 2026. I could not find a ruling as of this writing (Scopelitis).

English proficiency is back in enforcement. Federal rules already required interstate truck and bus drivers to respond to official inquiries and read English-language traffic signs. Under an FMCSA enforcement policy from May 2025, drivers who fail the roadside English interview are put out of service starting June 25, 2025 (Trucksafe). One analysis of FMCSA data by Fusable found carriers with English proficiency violations had crashes at nearly twice the national average (Straight Arrow News). That is a correlation from a vendor analysis, not a peer-reviewed finding.

What the data does not show. DOT's own rule says there is "not sufficient evidence" tying a driver's domicile to safety outcomes. It did not claim non-domiciled drivers crash more. When an appeals court paused the earlier rule in November 2025, it pointed to FMCSA figures putting non-domiciled holders at about 5 percent of CDL drivers and about 0.2 percent of fatal crashes (Transport Topics). Nobody publishes crash data by driver nationality for box trucks, vans or delivery vehicles.

My opinion: improperly issued licenses and weak enforcement are a real safety and liability problem, and the new rules are a reasonable response. But I will not tell you they explain a cost trend that began in 2014, because the sources I found do not show that. The AM Best data points at the courtroom.

What a Florida fleet owner controls

You cannot control jury awards. You can control the file that gets built after a crash.

• Know your drivers. Carriers underwrite your driver list and motor vehicle records. Keep both current, and report new drivers before they drive.
• Verify the license, not just that one exists. If you hire CDL drivers, check class, endorsements and the license type. Existing non-domiciled CDLs stay valid until they expire but cannot be renewed unless the driver meets the new rule. A driver pulled out of service is a load that does not move.
• Document your hiring and training. Screening, road tests and written policies are what you hand your defense attorney.
• Use cameras. The same logic from our post on cameras and lawsuits applies to dash cams. Video turns a swearing contest into a fact.
• Check your umbrella. With claims spilling above $1 million, a primary limit with no umbrella above it leaves the business exposed. See commercial umbrella.
• Cover the cars you do not own. Employees running errands in their own vehicles and rented vehicles are hired and non-owned auto, and it is sometimes left off the policy.

If you run vehicles in Florida, send me your current commercial auto policy and driver list. I will tell you what it covers and what it leaves off. Our commercial auto page and personal versus commercial auto explainer cover the basics.

This is general information and opinion, not legal advice or a quote. Coverage depends on the policy and on underwriting.

Sources

• AM Best: Social Inflation Drives Surge in Commercial Auto Liability Claims, Carrier Management, November 2, 2026.
• Litigation costs keep outpacing commercial auto rate increases, Insurance Business, 2026 (AM Best figures, 2014 to 2024; the full AM Best report is behind a paywall and was not read directly).
• Chad Hemenway, Nuclear Verdicts Go Boom, Increase 40.7% in 2025, Insurance Journal, August 25, 2026 (Marathon Strategies data, verdicts in 2025).
• Noël Fletcher, Nuclear verdicts in trucking nearly triple in 2025, Transport Topics, September 23, 2026.
• FMCSA, Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Drivers' Licenses, interim final rule, Federal Register, September 29, 2025. The final rule was published February 13, 2026.
• Non-Domiciled Final Rule: D.C. Circuit keeps FMCSA's final rule in place, Scopelitis, May 2026.
• Why an Appeals Court Paused FMCSA's Non-Domiciled CDL Order, Transport Topics, November 17, 2025.
• FMCSA English proficiency enforcement policy, Trucksafe, May 20, 2025 (49 CFR 391.11(b)(2); out-of-service enforcement beginning June 25, 2025).
• William Jackson, Study: English-deficient truckers pose greater safety risk than drugs, speeding, Straight Arrow News, August 7, 2025 (Fusable MC Advantage analysis of FMCSA data).

Coverage descriptions are general. Actual coverage is governed by the terms, conditions, and exclusions of the issued policy. Availability varies by carrier and by state.