Average Cost for NEMT Insurance
What is the average cost for NEMT insurance? Of course, we will try answer the question for everyone but there are many factors that go into it. The easiest answer is somewhere between $2000-$12,000 per year per vehicle. Now, for the hard part of getting the correct pricing for your company. Next, there are 9 categories that cause your non emergency medical transportation insurance to be lower or on the higher end of the spectrum.
Factors affecting your average cost for NEMT Insurance
State Regulations
Depending on the state you operate in your average NEMT insurance cost will be partially determined by the requirements your state has. For example, Arizona has a requirement for non emergency medical transportation insurance companies to have auto liability combined single limits of $300,000, uninsured and uninsured limits of $300,000. Meanwhile, Colorado has requirements for NEMT insurance of $500,000 combined single limits and $25,000/$50,000 for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Generally, the higher the limits of liability for your non emergency medical transportation business the higher the premiums. Some states have requirements of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 for auto liability coverage.
Types of Cars you use
The types of cars you have in your fleet will make an impact on your premiums. If you are using sedans for your NEMT company versus vans you can expect that your insurance premiums to be less. Also, you can expect your average NEMT insurance cost to be more if you are using newer vehicles. Try use vehicles that are five to 10 years old. Lastly, if you are using wheel chair vans for your company the NEMT insurance premiums will usually be more.
Limit of Commercial Auto Liability Limits
As we stated before, the more liability you have or are required to have the more your commercial auto insurance premiums will be. Furthermore, there isn’t a huge difference between $500,000 and $1,00,0000 combined single limit for one vehicle but it can add up if you have multiple cars and vans.
Drivers can affect your Non Emergency Medical Transportation Insurance Premiums
First of all, you should have a solid hiring plan to make sure you are hiring and retaining the best drivers available. Next, you should train your drivers to know how to loan and unload passengers, drive defensively, and so on. Non emergency medical transportation insurance companies will surcharge your premiums for bad drivers. Furthermore, they will give credits for good drivers. Bad drivers will have accidents eventually. Along with hiring the right drivers, you should make sure you have a fleet safety plan and additional driver training available and ongoing.
NEMT New Ventures
NEMT Insurance companies want to insure companies with a proven track record. If you have been in business less than three years you can expect that your NEMT insurance premiums will be more. Also, having erratic policy history will have an effect on insurance premiums.
Loss History for NEMT Companies
One of the things we usually have issues with when we quote a new risk is getting a complete loss history. For the most part, this is the single most important thing to have if your company has been operating for any amount of time. Non emergency medical transportation insurance companies will look at this before anything else. It shows your prior policies, any accidents that have occurred, and what was paid out.
Next, it is very important to ask you previous carrier for new loss runs each year. It is possible you could have switched insurance carriers and a claim will pop up after the new policy has renewed. The date on the loss runs will be within 30 days of when you are submitting your quote to a new carrier no matter how long ago you had the company. Usually, insurance companies will ask for five years of history. Finally, having claims isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing it depends on what you did to diminish the chance of it happening again. This can be accomplished by training, accident reviews, and using additional safety measures or equipment.
Radius of Operations-
Next, how far your radius of operations is from your garaging location will affect your NEMT premiums. If you want a 500 mile radius an insurance carrier might not want to write your policy. If they do they will surcharge the policy. It might be better to add a satellite office to areas that are not easy to service from your home base.
Garaging Location-
For the most part, if your main location is in a major city like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Boston, Houston, Seattle, New York, etc. you can expect your premiums to be more expensive than outlying areas. Likewise, non emergency medical transportation insurance premiums can even be based on different zip codes with a major metropolitan area.
Contracts you sign can affect your Non Emergency Medical Transportation Insurance Premiums
Next, if you are working with a broker or a company that has you sign a contract to refer business to you make sure you read through it to look at the NEMT insurance requirements. Their limits often are above and beyond what your state regulations may require. Also, you will want to make sure all of this coverage is quoted before you sign the contract. We have a lot of people that have signed contracts and have to come up with a lot of money for NEMT insurance premiums without knowing how much work they will receive from this contract.
As you can see, there are many factors that go into this non emergency medical transportation insurance premiums and the average cost for NEMT insurance is hard to guess but if you follow this plan you should be able to out yourself in a great position to find the best policy.
