What Truckers Need to Know About the SMS/CSA Score
There’s a lot of paperwork and information and documentation that truckers must keep on hand—and if you’ve been paying attention, you know that one of these things is your SMS score. But what does it all mean? What does the FMSCA do with this information, and why should you care about it? Let’s break down the basics of your SMS score and its role in trucking insurance.
The Basics of Your SMS Score
Your SMS score stands for Safety Measurement System. It is a rating system developed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMSCA) that allows them to measure how safe a carrier or trucker is on the road. The FMSCA will assign carriers and drivers an overall safety rating based on their performance in seven different categories: Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and Crash Indicator. All these scores are then combined into one overall Safety Measurement System score.
How Does Your SMS Score Affect Insurance?
Your SMS score plays an important role when it comes to securing trucking insurance. Insurers use this score as a way to measure how risky a driver or carrier might be when out on the road—the lower your score (clean inspections), the lower your premiums may be. In some cases, insurers may even deny coverage if your safety rating is too high (bad inspections, put OOS). Your OOS percentages play a huge role in how insurers view your company! That’s why it’s so important for truckers to keep their inspections clean—it can save you money in the long run!
How Do You Improve Your Score?
Improving your SMS can seem intimidating at first but don't worry—it's not as difficult as it seems! Start by making sure all of your documents are up-to-date and accurate; this includes driver's licenses, vehicle registration papers, insurance papers etc. Secondly, make sure you always adhere to industry regulations like hours-of-service requirements and hazardous material handling guidelines; this will help keep your safety record clean which will have a positive effect on your overall score. Thirdly, if you’ve had a couple of bad inspections and are now learning that this is effecting you badly, you can stop and do volunteer inspections at DOT checkpoints. This will lower your out of service percentage and reduce your safety score because you now have clean inspections to combat the bad ones, obviously if your doing the inspections make sure that you have everything squared away before you do the inspection, for this, refer to our blog post about how to make sure you’re prepared for a DOT inspection. Finally, invest in regular maintenance for your vehicles; this can help ensure that everything runs smoothly while also keeping repair costs low which will also benefit your bottom line.
Your SMS score is an important factor when looking for trucking insurance coverage. Keeping up with industry standards and regulations is key for maintaining a good rating which could potentially save you money in the long run! So if you're looking for ways to get better coverage at lower rates--start by monitoring and improving your SMS score today! Keep these tips in mind for getting maximum value out of insurance providers--it's worth it!