HUB International has released its 2026 outlook for the transportation industry, outlining four focus areas: technology, profitability, vitality, and resiliency.
HUB is a leader in the industry, and I value that insight and take this heads up seriously It’s a polished report full of insurance language. I’ve read it so you don’t have to. Here’s what I think it all means in plain language.
The short version?
Rates are going up. Claims are getting harder to collect. And insurers are stepping in where governments have failed.
Technology: “Optional” Is No Longer a Word
The report says the adoption and optimization of emerging technology is non-negotiable. Underwriters now expect carriers to be using telematics, ELDs, and in-cab cameras when negotiating terms.
Translated:
This is your final reckoning, If you don’t have ELDs and cameras, you won’t get insurance.
It won’t matter if you operate federally or provincially. If you want commercial truck insurance in Canada, telematics will be part of the deal. The last holdouts — the “old-school” fleets — are out of road.
There is no money left in trucking, no carrier can absorb additional insurance costs just because a driver threatens to quit over cameras. If you can afford to self-insure, Alberta allows it — but that risk is yours alone.
Profitability: “Safeguarding” Means You’re Paying More
The gist is, telematics and data are tools to “safeguard profitability.” What that really means is:
Yes, telematics can save money — eventually. But only after you spend money, retrain drivers, and survive the adjustment period.
The report correctly points to litigation financing and nuclear verdicts as a major driver of rising costs. This is especially true in Alberta, where private insurance creates more opportunities for large civil claims.
Insurers congratulate themselves for keeping car liability rates “stable,” but the truth is simpler:
People stopped making claims.
Because if you do, your premium goes up the same amount the following year — so you eat the cost instead.
Vitality: Driver Wellness, But at What Cost?
I thought the points about driver wellness and vitality felt a bit victim blamey; we all understand the facilities and supports do not exist for drivers to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Apparently drivers want more than wages — they want physical, mental, and emotional support.
But here’s what drivers really want:
To go to work and not die on the highway because an untrained driver with a brand-new licence passed them on a double solid and wrecked.
The article suggests low-cost wellness tools like CDL health scanners and fitness apps. A CDL health scanner is a smartphone-based tool that allows drivers to self-monitor health indicators relevant to medical fitness related to commercial driving.
My dystopian mind thinks, it’s not a big leap from self-monitoring to employer-collected data. Health rings. Smartphones. Driver fatigue metrics transmitted alongside ELD data.
At what point do we start to see payroll deductions for fat jabs become part of “risk management”?
Drivers do have medical events behind the wheel that kill not just themselves, but innocent people. Why do medically unfit drivers keep driving? Because there is no social safety net that allows them to stop driving, get well, and still earn a living.
In Alberta, sleep apnea symptoms are self-reported during a driver medical. Physicians know that pulling a licence often means condemning someone to poverty on disability. But removing medically unfit drivers from public roads must be a priority.
Autonomous long-haul trucks are not imminent in Canada — especially not in northern provinces. If we can’t automate the truck, the next step is automating the driver.
ELDs already monitor hours. Driver-facing cameras already monitor behaviour. Fatigue alerts are coming. Ignore an alert, crash, die — and now it’s the company’s fault for not training the driver to stop.
Resiliency: Weather, Cybercrime, and Human Weakness
The writers highlight natural disasters and cyber threats. Using weather data to keep trucks off highways in dangerous conditions is just common sense. Don’t run LCVs in an ice storm.
Cyber-facilitated cargo theft is newer — and very real. Instead of smash-and-grab, criminals manipulate routing and delivery instructions. If drivers rely solely on apps and text-based dispatch, rerouting a load is easy. Two days later, the truck, trailer and cargo is on a ship to a foreign land.
“Patching social engineering vulnerabilities” is a fancy way of saying:
Stop people from getting tricked.
Never give out passwords. Verify instructions. Slow down.
ELD systems store enormous amounts of sensitive data — licences, addresses, personal identifiers. Carriers are responsible for limiting access and securing it properly.
The Bottom Line
Every measure in this report shifts more responsibility onto the carrier.
The new Class 1 Driver Experience Abstract requires carriers to attest to driver experience. Orientation, evaluations, ongoing coaching, and ELD-based monitoring are no longer optional.
In other words, carriers are being pushed toward formal, professional driver training systems — the same components found in red-seal style programs.
Whether governments act or not, the insurance industry already has.
