Pricey insurance for trucks streaming across LI

Data Point

More trucks roll into LI as warehousing, e-commerce boom

When Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in her State of the State address plans to roll out measures to tackle auto insurance fraud and lower auto insurance rates, car owners weren't the only ones cheering. Long Island's billion-dollar trucking and warehousing industry, which pays some of the highest commercial truck insurance rates in the country, was relieved too.

Local insurance premiums in New York average $16,949 a year per truck, lower only than New Jersey ($20,763), Louisiana ($19,736) and Delaware ($17,351), according to data from insurance agency CoverWallet. This cost is passed onto customers and "puts New York's fleet at a competitive disadvantage," the Trucking Association of New York (TANY) said in a statement in response to Hochul's announcement.

Long Islanders have always had a fraught relationship with the trucks we share our roads with, specifically the larger single-unit and combination-unit trucks. Almost every grocery shelf in the region relies on a truck and its driver to stay stocked up. There are more trucks driving through the region today than a decade ago, owing to a surge in online shopping (think Amazon), retail consumption and warehousing on Long Island.

With trucks restricted from driving on all state parkways and some Long Island residential roads, freight brought to Long Island on the Whitestone Bridge and Throgs Neck Bridge is largely moved via the Long Island Expressway in the north and Sunrise Highway in the south.

On average, there were nearly 19,351 trucks passing Exit 39 on the LIE every day in 2023, per the latest data from the state Department of Transportation, making up 13% of all motor vehicles. This was up from about 16,400 trucks a day in 2016, when they accounted for 10% of all traffic on the highway. Around 2,600 trucks move through Sunrise Highway every day, measured where the highway intersects with the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway.

The transportation and warehousing sector on Long Island generated an estimated $1.85 billion in revenue in 2023, more than doubling since 2015. Warehousing and transportation companies are leasing more on Long Island now than a decade ago, and an estimated 1.8 million square feet of industrial land is under construction, investment management company Colliers estimated in a 2025 report.

"You get more bang for your buck, real estate-wise," Zack Miller, vice president of government affairs at TANY, told The Point, comparing the cost of leasing per square foot on Long Island to New York City. "That puts more pressure on the supply chain because the truck is not just the means of delivery, it is a means of storage."

Online retailers offering same-day or overnight deliveries have also boosted activity in the courier industry on Long Island, employing nearly 10,000 people, and 50% more people in 2024 than 2018, according to state Department of Labor data. These include smaller trucks operated by Amazon and carriers such as FedEx and UPS, delivering products from warehouses to doorsteps. The sector is expected to grow by another 51% by 2030.

Contrary to what is generally believed, "most local trucking companies are small companies," Miller added. "These insurance costs are the difference between being able to grow your business, being able to stay afloat or make the painful decision of closing."

— Karthika Namboothiri karthika.namboothiri@newsday.com

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