How does your CSA score affect your trucking insurance?

If you've shopped for trucking insurance recently, you've probably heard insurance carriers ask about your CSA score. A high score can mean higher premiums, fewer coverage options, or getting turned down altogether.

One thing worth knowing upfront: there's no single CSA score for your fleet. The FMCSA tracks violations in a few different categories — like unsafe driving and vehicle maintenance — and compares you against other fleets around your size. What matters is how you stack up against your peers, not a fixed number.

Here's what your CSA score actually is, how it's built, how it affects your premiums, and what you can do to improve it.

What’s a CSA score?

CSA stands for Compliance, Safety, Accountability. It's a program run by the FMCSA to track how safely trucking companies operate.

Think of it like a report card for your fleet. Every roadside inspection, violation, and crash gets logged. The worse your record, the higher your score. A high score signals risk to regulators, shippers, and the insurance carriers pricing your policy.

What gets tracked

The FMCSA organizes violations into seven categories:

1. Unsafe Driving: Speeding, reckless driving, distracted driving, improper lane changes
2. Hours of Service: Driving too many hours, logbook violations, falsified records
3. Driver Fitness: Drivers with expired CDLs, missing medical certificates, or not qualified to operate the vehicle
4. Controlled Substances and Alcohol: Drug and alcohol violations
5. Vehicle Maintenance: Bad brakes, worn tires, broken lights, vehicles pulled out of service during an inspection
6. Hazardous Materials: Improper handling or labeling (this one only applies if you haul hazmat)
7. Crash History: How often your trucks are involved in accidents, and how serious those accidents are
   
   

How is a CSA score calculated?

Each of the seven categories has its own score. For each category, the FMCSA compares your fleet’s violations to other fleets around the same size as yours.

Not every violation counts the same. The FMCSA weighs them two ways:

• How serious it is: Going 20 mph over the limit adds more points than going 5 over.
• How recent it is: Violations from the past six months count the most. Anything older than two years drops off entirely.

Your score isn't fixed, which means you can improve it. (You can also make it worse with more violations.)

One important thing to understand: your CSA score isn't the number of points your fleet accumulates. It's a percentile. A score of 70 doesn't mean you got 70 out of 100 — it means your fleet had more violations than 70% of similarly-sized carriers. Lower is always better.

Example

Say you run a fleet of four trucks. Over the past year, two of your drivers picked up speeding tickets.

• Driver A was clocked at 13 mph over the limit two months ago. That violation has a severity weight of 7. Because it happened within the last six months, it gets multiplied by 3 for recency. 7 × 3 = 21 points
  
• Driver B was clocked at 17 mph over the limit eight months ago. That violation has a severity weight of 10. Because it happened 7–12 months ago, it gets multiplied by 2 for recency. 10 × 2 = 20 points
  
  
• That gives you 41 points in the Unsafe Driving category. But 41 points isn't your Unsafe Driving score.
  
  
• FMCSA takes those 41 points and compares them against every other four-truck fleet. Just as an example, let’s say the average 4-truck fleet has around 15 Unsafe Driving points, and 80% of four-truck fleets have fewer Unsafe Driving points than you. Your Unsafe Driving score would be 80. And at that level, insurance carriers will take notice.

Note: The FMCSA is currently overhauling how CSA scores are calculated. The new system will simplify severity weights and rename the categories. You can preview your score under the new methodology at https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/prioritizationpreview.

When does a CSA score become a problem?

Each category has a specific threshold where the FMCSA will step in, typically in the 65–80% range. At that point, the FMCSA may send a warning letter, ask you to submit a safety improvement plan, or run a full compliance audit where an investigator reviews your records and operations.

Insurance carriers watch these same numbers. If you're flagged by the FMCSA, you're also a red flag to insurers. That can mean a higher quote, or they might decide not to quote you at all.

How your CSA score affects your insurance rate

Insurance carriers use CSA scores as a way to understand how risky your fleet is. Fleets with clean records consistently get better rates. Fleets with rising scores are seen as riskier to insure. Higher scores might mean paying more at renewal, or having trouble finding coverage at all.

What you can do to improve your score

• Check your scores before your insurer does. You can log in to ai.fmcsa.dot.gov to see your scores. Look at it before renewal so you're not caught off guard. (Cai can also help you monitor your FMCSA data automatically.)

• Challenge violations that are wrong. Roadside inspection records aren't always accurate. If you think a violation is incorrect, you can formally dispute it through the FMCSA’s DataQs portal: https://dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov. After you submit your dispute, the agency that issued the violation will review it. If they agree to remove it, your score will drop. This is one of the most underused options available to fleet owners.

• Coach your drivers. Most unsafe driving and hours-of-service violations are preventable. Regular check-ins, ELD reviews, and clear expectations make a real difference. Over time, a safer driver culture shows up in your scores.

• Stay on top of maintenance. Vehicle maintenance is one of the most common categories to flag, and one of the most avoidable. A basic preventive maintenance schedule dramatically reduces the chance of a violation during a roadside inspection.

• Keep records. If you need to dispute a violation, documentation is your best tool. Maintenance logs, driver records, and inspection paperwork all help make your case.
  
  

The bottom line

Your CSA score is a live record of how your fleet looks to the FMCSA, and to the insurance carriers pricing your policy. The best time to pay attention to it is well before your insurance renewal, so you can catch issues and make improvements before they affect your premiums.

If you’re working with Cai for your fleet’s insurance, reach out to our team for help setting up proactive compliance monitoring. We provide it at no cost to your fleet.

Frequently asked questions

What is a CSA score in trucking? It's a safety score assigned to your fleet by the FMCSA based on roadside inspections, violations, and crash history. The higher your score in any category, the more risky you seem to regulators, shippers, and insurance carriers.

What is a good CSA score? There's no single number to aim for. Your score in each category is a percentile, meaning it tells you how you rank compared to similarly-sized fleets. A score of 70 doesn't mean you got 70 out of 100. It means your fleet had more violations than 70% of carriers your size. In general, anything below 20 will put you in a strong position.

How do I check my CSA score? Your score is publicly available at ai.fmcsa.dot.gov. You can look up your fleet by DOT number at any time.

Does my CSA score affect my trucking insurance rates? Yes. Insurance carriers pull your FMCSA safety data when pricing your policy. They want to see that your fleet isn’t riskier than your peers. From an insurance standpoint, under 20 looks good, under 50 is generally acceptable, and above 75 is where you may have trouble getting good insurance quotes. High scores in certain categories — especially Unsafe Driving, Vehicle Maintenance, and Crash History — can lead to higher premiums or coverage being declined.

How do I lower my CSA score? Focus on driver coaching, preventive maintenance, and disputing any violations you believe are inaccurate. Violations age off your record over time, so the sooner you start making improvements to your operations, the sooner your CSA score will drop.

Most insurance brokers only show up at renewal. Cai monitors your FMCSA data year-round to flag issues before they affect your insurance premiums, not after. Give us a call at (770) 765-0331 to get started today.