The Numbers

First-year commercial auto liability loss payments grew 6.4% a year from 2014 to 2024, against average economic inflation of 2.8%, according to a new AM Best special report as reported by Insurance Business. AM Best’s September 2025 market review found that average severity on these claims more than doubled over nine years, growing about 8% annually. It also found the line lost $4.9 billion on underwriting in 2024, its 14th straight year of losses, with liability alone losing $6.4 billion.

The Rest of the Picture

Those losses sit inside an otherwise very profitable industry. AM Best reports U.S. property and casualty insurers earned $31.2 billion in net underwriting income in the first half of 2026, nearly triple last year’s $10.9 billion, helped by far lower catastrophe losses. Casualty lines like commercial auto are the exception.

Insurers blame “social inflation,” meaning rising verdicts, more attorney involvement, and litigation funding. AM Best describes the “social” part as shifting attitudes about who should absorb risk, the insurer or the injured person.

The verdict data is more mixed than the headlines. Marathon Strategies, a crisis-communications firm that advises corporate defendants, counts 12 verdicts of $10 million or more against trucking and automotive companies in 2025, totaling $3.4 billion. Its latest report restates 2024 as 15 cases and $1.4 billion, while an earlier edition put 2024 at $4.1 billion, and the summary I read doesn’t explain the change. Those totals include automakers, such as a $243 million Miami verdict against Tesla over an Autopilot crash, not just trucking companies.

The U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, which advocates for tort reform, reviewed 334 trucking verdicts and settlements from June 2023 to July 2026. It found plaintiffs’ verdicts averaged nearly $28 million, but the median was $5.2 million. Settlements averaged $4.73 million, with a median of $2.15 million. The authors caution that their sample isn’t representative and that reported verdicts may be reduced on appeal.

Where Fraud Fits In

Fraud is a documented factor in some markets. The same report points to “Operation Sideswipe,” an FBI case in New Orleans in which 63 people were charged and more than 50 convicted, including two personal injury attorneys, for staging collisions with commercial trucks. One staged crash produced a $4.7 million payout. We’ve covered the federal bill that would make staging a crash a federal crime. A separate National Insurance Crime Bureau report this week put auto-lending fraud exposure at $10.4 billion. That involves loans and theft claims, not liability claims, and nothing in the reporting ties it to commercial auto costs.

What It Means for Truck-Crash Victims

The federal minimum liability coverage for most for-hire trucking is still $750,000, unchanged since 1985. FMCSA has told Congress that inflation alone would put it near $2.2 million, or about $3.7 million using medical costs. Industry groups argue few crashes exceed the minimum, and most carriers buy $1 million or more. For a catastrophic injury, though, the layers above the primary policy matter.

Liability can also reach beyond the carrier. The ILR report cites a $604 million Texas verdict against freight broker C.H. Robinson in July. Trailer and truck makers have faced large product-liability verdicts too. Lawyers in this field note that a carrier’s own GPS and telematics data often becomes key evidence. So ask early about every policy (primary, umbrella, and excess), and request that driver logs, telematics, and maintenance records be preserved.

Costs are being passed along. The ILR report cites trucking liability premiums up 37.8% from 2015 to 2024, reaching a record 10.6 cents per mile in 2025.

Insurers point to Florida’s 2023 tort reforms as the model. But Marathon says it will take years to judge them, because most of Florida’s 2025 nuclear verdicts came from lawsuits filed before the law took effect.

The takeaway: rising claim costs don’t change what you’re owed after a crash, but they do make it more important to identify every source of recovery. If you’ve been injured by a commercial truck, the independent attorneys we connect you with can help you do that. We also reported on the same trend hitting everyday drivers.

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