How to Improve Your CSA Score and Lower Insurance Rates
For many carriers and owner-operators, the CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) is an often confusing topic. You know it exists, and you know it matters, but it often feels like a "hidden grade" that only comes up when you go to renew your insurance policy, or are turned down for certain contracts or loads.
The reality is that your CSA score is one of the few things in trucking you can directly control to lower your operating costs, reduce the chances of future audits, and provide direct evidence of your company’s safety track record.
Here is the plain English breakdown of what this score is, why it could be costing you money, and exactly how to fix it.
Your Safety Scorecard Explained
Your CSA score is less of a number rating and more of a percentile. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) compares your safety data against other carriers and the national average.
The FMCSA organizes your data into seven specific "buckets," which are called BASICs.
Unsafe Driving: Speeding, reckless driving, and improper lane changes.
Crash Indicator: History of accidents (even if they weren't your fault).
Hours of Service (HOS): Staying within the drive-time limit, keeping proper logs.
Vehicle Maintenance: Brakes, lights, and defects found during inspections.
Controlled Substances/Alcohol: Drug testing violations.
Hazardous Materials: Leaking containers or improper placards.
Driver Fitness: Driving without a valid CDL, medical card, or using unqualified drivers.
Say if you have a driver that’s pulled over for speeding and during the traffic stop they fail to provide their medical DOT card. These are two separate violations - one is unsafe driving (speeding), the other is driver fitness (failed to provide medical card) - each violation has a severity score that is determined by the FMCSA. These severity scores are then multiplied by how recent the violation occurred, going from 3x, to 2x, then finally to 1x before it eventually falls off and is no longer included in your CSA score.
If you only have 1 driver, this is going to have a significant effect on your overall scores. If it’s only 1 driver out of 40 that you have, your CSA score will not be affected as much, but obviously should still be avoided at all costs.
The Connection Between Scores and Insurance
Insurance providers are in the business of predicting risk. They do not have the time to ride shotgun with every one of your drivers, so they rely on your CSA data, among other factors, to guess how safe you are.
When an underwriter sees a high score—especially in Unsafe Driving or Vehicle Maintenance—they see a future claim waiting to happen. To protect themselves, they raise your premiums. We have seen carriers drop their insurance costs significantly simply by focusing on lowering their scores in these two specific BASIC categories.
Three Steps to Lower Your Score
You cannot change your score overnight, but you can start trending in the right direction immediately. Here is the strategy we recommend to our clients.
1. Challenge Incorrect Data
This is the most overlooked tool in the industry. Roadside inspectors are human, and they make mistakes. If you received a violation that you believe was incorrect, you can fight it.
You can use the DataQs system to submit a challenge. If you can prove the violation was wrong (for example, you have a repair receipt showing the brake light was working immediately before the stop), the violation can be removed from your record. Removing just one or two bad violations can dramatically drop your score.
Please bear in mind, this isn’t a “contest everything” approach. In order to win a DataQ challenge, you must provide ample evidence to show that you received the violation in error and that it should be reverse. Otherwise, if you know you were in the wrong and are just trying to lower your score by fighting the violation, you’re not going to get very far.
2. Get Clean Inspections as Much as Possible
Most drivers try to avoid weigh stations and inspectors when planning their routes. However, if you know your equipment & driver documents are in perfect shape, a clean inspection is actually your best friend.
CSA scores are calculated on an average. The more clean inspections you have on your record, the more they "dilute" the bad ones. If you have one bad inspection and one clean one, your average is 50%. If you have one bad inspection and nine clean ones, that bad mark matters a lot less.
So whenever the opportunity presents itself to get an inspection, like going through a weight station, jump at it. Even if your score isn’t bad now, getting clean inspections will ensure that if something happens down the road, it’s not going to have as much of an impact.
3. Treat Pre-Trip Inspections Like a Job Requirement (They Are)
The Vehicle Maintenance category is the easiest place to get hit with points, but it is also the easiest to fix. A burnt-out marker light or a bald tire are easy citations for an officer to write.
If your drivers are skipping the pre-trip inspection, they are inviting bad inspections, higher insurance rates, and overall higher risk for you and your organization. Ensure every truck is checked before it leaves the yard. Finding a loose airline in your driveway costs zero points; finding it at a scale house could cost you thousands in future premiums.
Additionally, ensure each vehicle is equipped with things like:
Road flares
Extra fuses
Mounted fire extinguisher
Backup paper logs
Driver Documents (License, Insurance, Medical DOT Card, etc)
Good Scores Start With Good Compliance
We get it. Running any company is a hard enough job. As an owner, manager, or executive, you’re often balancing spinning plates just trying to keep things moving day-by-day. Adding federal & state compliance requirements is like putting you on a tightrope at the same time. As much as we would love to tell you that “being busy” is a valid excuse during a traffic stop, roadside inspection, or New Entrant Safety Audit, it just isn’t.
As a company with commercial vehicles, it’s your responsibility to ensure your operation is operating legally & safely - for your own interests, as well as the public at large. If you’re not absolutely sure that you’re meeting all of the federal & state requirements for your particular operation - contact us to speak with a dedicated compliance agent who can ensure there are no gaps in compliance that are waiting to be found during your next inspections.
How to Maintain a Good CSA Score
First off, working with compliance experts who do the heavy-lifting for you to ensure you’re meeting the general compliance requirements is the easiest way to keep your score attractive to insurance agents, contractors, and more.
Second, if you’re not working with an expert, then investing the time to understand compliance is an absolute must for any carrier. You can start with checking our Safety Audit checklist, and the 16 Automatic Failure Violations. These will not only help you prepare for a New Entrant Safety Audit, but will also give you the information you need to get clean inspections, and a steady CSA score.
For any questions regarding CSA Scores, New Entrant Safety Audits, Compliance Requirements, and more, give TIPS a call today at (208) 278-6722 to get the answers you need, before it affects your operations.