Start with where the money goes.
A DSP program is four lines. Your delivery agreement usually sets the floor for each one.
Typical requirements as summarized in published DSP insurance guides. Your own agreement governs. Ask your account manager for the insurance exhibit, and send it to us with your renewal.
Auto is where the money goes.
Every van, every day, on residential streets, with a new driver in the seat more often than anyone would like. It is the biggest line on the bill and the one that moves the most.
Comp is the line people misread.
The rate printed on the quote is almost never the rate you pay, and owners compare quotes on the wrong number all the time. Stop 02 shows why.
The umbrella is the line people forget.
We have read DSP certificates this year with no umbrella on them at all. If your agreement requires one and your certificate does not show it, that is the first thing to fix, before price.
Your comp rate is not the number on the page.
Package delivery drivers are rated in one comp class. The quote shows that class rate per $100 of payroll. Then three things come off it before you ever see a bill.
| Step | Rate per $100 | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Class manual rate | $5.00 | what the class costs |
| After your experience mod, 0.90 | $4.50 | your own loss record |
| After schedule credit, 20% | $3.60 | negotiated, not guaranteed |
| All in, after size discount and fees | $3.29 | what you actually pay |
Illustrative example, the same 40-van sample loaded in Stop 03. Your own rates come off your quote and your mod worksheet, not off this page.
Same policy, four different numbers. A manual rate, a modified rate, a credited rate and an all-in rate. When another agent tells you they can get you “under $3,” the only useful question is which line of this ladder that number sits on. Compare an all-in rate against someone else's manual rate and you will pick the wrong quote every time.
Two of those steps belong to you and follow you to any carrier: your mod, and the size of your payroll. One belongs to the carrier and can change at renewal: the schedule credit. Know how much of your price is earned and how much is negotiated.
Work out your cost per van.
Enter your USDOT number and we pull your fleet from public federal records. Then add a few numbers off your current bill. This is the same arithmetic the underwriter runs.
Sample loaded: an illustrative 40-van DSP. Replace any number with your own.
Your comp rate
Your auto cost
Per van per day is the number to hold up against any program that bills you daily. Peak vans if scheduled is the bar a hired auto price has to beat.
The all-in comp rate applies an illustrative size discount by premium band plus about 1% for fees and assessments. Auto cost is your premium divided by your scheduled vans. Estimates for comparison, not quotations.
Scheduled, hired, non-owned.
Peak season is where most DSP auto programs break. Not every van belongs on the policy the same way, and the one you pick changes the price.
| Vehicle | Typical term | How it is covered | Priced on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your core fleet van | 12-month lease | Scheduled by VIN, with physical damage and your lessor named | a rate per unit |
| A peak season rental | 15 to 30 days | Hired auto | what you spend to rent them |
| An employee's own car on a bank run | not applicable | Non-owned auto | your headcount |
| A step van over 10,000 lbs | any | Scheduled, and federal motor carrier rules apply to it | a rate per unit |
The rule, stated plainly. A van on a 12-month lease gets scheduled. Hired auto is for short-term rentals. Put a long-term van in the hired bucket to save premium and you have bought a coverage fight on the claim that matters most.
Peak breaks small fleet programs.
Many small fleet auto programs cap at 40 vehicles, trailers included. A 40-van DSP taking on twenty rentals for the winter is not near that limit. It is well past it, and it is past it the first week of November.
Hired auto is cheaper, and it has a gap.
It is rated on your rental spend rather than per van, which is why it costs less than scheduling. But many carriers do not offer physical damage on hired vehicles, and your lessor will want the van itself covered. The rental counter's damage waiver does not fix that. Rental companies describe their own waiver as not insurance, and it names no loss payee.
Amazon's own program handles peak neatly.
It bills per van per day off the fleet portal, so rentals come on and off without paperwork. That is a real convenience and worth respecting. The question is what that daily rate adds up to over a year against your per van per day number from Stop 03. Programs increasingly let DSPs place coverage elsewhere at renewal. Confirm your own eligibility with your account manager before you move anything.
What gets a certificate rejected.
Certificates are checked against your agreement and against your lessor's requirements. A rejected one can hold up your routes. These are the ones we see fail.
Generic additional insured wording
Your agreement and your lessor each specify their own endorsement language, usually primary and non-contributory. A standard blanket form is not always enough. The wording has to match.
A named insured that does not match
The company on the certificate has to be the company on the delivery agreement and on the lease.
A deductible your lease does not allow
Lessors cap physical damage deductibles, often lower on vans below a cost-new threshold. A quote above that cap will not satisfy the lease, however much it saves.
An umbrella that is missing or too small
If your agreement requires $5 million over auto and general liability, the certificate has to show it.
Cargo and employers liability limits
Both are commonly specified. Both are easy to leave at a default that is below the requirement.
A lapse, however short
A missed payment or a late renewal shows up as a gap. Pick a payment plan you will not miss.
At some point this stops being an insurance question.
Some DSPs sit in a captive or a program that pays back underwriting profit in a good year. That can be a very good deal. It has two catches.
The return is the whole opportunity.
Say a good loss year sends $150,000 back to you. That money was yours to begin with: it is premium you paid that nobody needed. When it comes back, it typically lands on your P&L as income and gets taxed like any other profit. And while you wait for it, cash collateral sits with the program.
The better question is not “captive or no captive.” It is where the profit on your own good driving should end up. Buy real insurance for the severe loss nobody should self-fund. Fund the predictable layer in a vehicle you own, where the margin you keep is not simply handed back as next year's taxable income.
The Latitude Plan
That is what the Latitude Plan is for. It is not for every DSP and we will tell you plainly if it is not for you. It starts to make sense when your combined premium is large enough to be worth restructuring and your loss record is good enough to keep the margin.
Six places a DSP program leaks money.
None of these are exotic. All of them are on DSP quotes we read this year.
Priced on a sample of your drivers
A quote rated on 20 of your 120 drivers is not a price. It moves when the full list is rated, and it usually moves up. Ask how many drivers the number assumes before you plan around it.
Uninsured motorist nobody chose
At a $1 million limit, uninsured motorist can be a double-digit share of the auto bill. In most states it is an election you are allowed to reduce or reject in writing. It is a decision. See it priced both ways before someone makes it for you.
Peak rentals paid like fleet vans
Scheduling a 30-day rental pays a full per-unit rate for a short-term exposure, and it can push you past a program's vehicle cap. Short-term rentals belong in hired auto, with the physical damage gap solved separately.
A deductible the lease will not accept
Raising the deductible is the oldest way to cut an auto premium. Check your lease first. If your lessor caps the deductible below what you picked, you saved premium and bought a rejected certificate.
Comparing a manual rate to an all-in rate
The comp number on one quote is before credits. The number on another is after. Put both on the same line of the ladder in Stop 02 before you decide which one is cheaper.
Mileage that does not match your federal filing
Your MCS-150 reports your fleet's annual miles to the federal government, and underwriters can read it. If the mileage on your application tells a different story, the one on file wins at audit.
Three steps.
We read the bill line by line
Every coverage, every limit, every rate, turned into a cost per van per month and a comp rate per $100 on the all-in line. You see what you are actually paying for each piece.
We price the fleet the way it actually runs
Your 12-month fleet scheduled, your peak rentals handled separately, uninsured motorist priced both ways, and every line quoted on its own so nothing hides inside a package number.
We check it against your agreement and your lease
Endorsement wording, named insured, deductibles, umbrella and cargo limits, all matched to what your delivery agreement and your lessor require. Before you bind, not after a certificate comes back.
Send us your renewal.
No cost and no obligation. If your program is priced right we will tell you that in writing, and you can renew where you are.
What we need
- Your current declarations pages or your program invoice, every line
- Your vehicle list, marked 12-month lease or short-term rental
- The insurance requirements from your delivery agreement and from your lessor
- Your workers' comp experience mod worksheet, if you have it
You do not need to send a driver list for the first look. We will ask for it only if you want a firm quote.
Clear View is licensed in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota and North Dakota. If your DSP operates outside those states, we are not able to place coverage for you.
Clear View Insurance · 1700 N Broadway, Moore, Oklahoma 73160
Clear View Insurance is an independent insurance agency. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon.com, Inc. or any of its affiliates. “Amazon” and “Delivery Service Partner” are used only to describe the businesses this page is written for.
Rates, limits and examples on this page are illustrative and drawn from published market commentary and general underwriting practice. They are not a quotation, not an offer of insurance, and not any carrier's filed rates. Requirements shown are typical and your own agreement and lease govern. Coverage is described in summary only and the policy language governs. Clear View Insurance is not a licensed investment or tax advisor; alternative risk structures require independent legal, tax and actuarial review.
Schedule with Erick Cummings.
Director of Commercial Lines