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The box truck insurance Amazon Relay requires is published and specific: $1,000,000 in auto liability per occurrence, $100,000 in cargo, and $1,000,000 per occurrence in general liability. Amazon DSP is a separate program with no published insurance limits. Most articles on this topic treat the two as one requirement list, and that's where the wrong numbers come from.
Those limits are eligibility minimums, set so Amazon can decide which carriers join its network, and a serious injury claim can run well past $1,000,000.
Amazon Relay and Amazon DSP are not the same program. Relay is a freight marketplace where independent carriers haul between Amazon facilities using their own operating authority, trucks, and insurance. DSP is a last-mile delivery business built around Amazon-branded vans running out of one delivery station. The owner's own employees drive them.
Amazon publishes minimum insurance limits for Relay carriers. Amazon DSP insurance requirements are the harder question, because Amazon states none of them publicly. On its DSP program pages, insurance appears among startup services Amazon negotiated with third-party providers, and no limit is named for any line of coverage.
Amazon last mile contractor insurance goes through those negotiated options, with no published spec to shop against. (DSP runs on Amazon's vans, and Amazon supplies them.)
The structural differences change how a policy gets built.
| What differs | Amazon Relay | Amazon DSP |
|---|---|---|
| Program type | Middle-mile freight between Amazon facilities | Last-mile delivery out of one Amazon delivery station |
| Who holds the operating authority | Your company, under its own USDOT and MC numbers | Not a for-hire freight carrier, so no MC authority to haul regulated freight for others |
| Whose vehicles | Yours, including 16-foot and 26-foot liftgate box trucks | Amazon-branded vans, usually leased through Amazon's negotiated program |
| Who employs the drivers | Your drivers | Your W-2 delivery associates, hired and managed by you |
| Published insurance limits | Yes, stated on Amazon's public Relay pages | None stated anywhere on Amazon's public DSP pages |
Amazon Relay requires auto liability of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence. Cargo coverage must be at least $100,000. General liability needs $1,000,000 per occurrence with $2,000,000 aggregate. Workers compensation is required in every jurisdiction where the company operates, along with employers liability of at least $100,000 per occurrence.
The Amazon Relay auto liability requirement covers harm the truck does to other people, and per occurrence means the full limit is available for each accident. Nothing on Amazon's list repairs the box truck itself.
A single-truck operation usually buys commercial auto with physical damage coverage, because the lender wants it insured. Amazon's pages disagree about the $50,000 trailer figure.
Amazon's FAQ describes trailer replacement coverage bundled inside the auto liability requirement. Its February 2026 insurance page calls the same $50,000 figure trailer interchange coverage, scoped to carriers running a semi. Those are two different products, and a straight truck pulls no trailer. (Ask which one your agreement means.)
Amazon Relay accepts 16-foot and 26-foot box trucks with a functional tuck-under liftgate. The carrier also needs a USDOT number with interstate authority active for at least 180 days and a valid MC number. The FMCSA safety rating has to be satisfactory, none, or not rated.
Amazon specifies box trucks by body length on its equipment list and states no weight rating for them at all. The companion post covers what a non-CDL rating does not exempt you from.
Amazon also states its BASIC score thresholds run 5% below federal standards, so a carrier that clears FMCSA can still miss Relay.
The 180-day requirement catches people off guard, because the clock runs on the operating authority rather than the truck.
Amazon estimates $12,000 to $18,000 a year for newer carriers, and $8,000 to $14,000 for experienced carriers with clean records. That's roughly $1,000 to $1,500 per month for a newer carrier.
A single 26-foot straight truck is a different risk from a tractor-trailer, so read the range as context. No authoritative source publishes premiums broken out for straight trucks.
Amazon also lists what moves the number: driving history, equipment type and age, operating radius, claims history, credit score, and safety technology.
Amazon's $1,000,000 auto liability requirement is the number that gets a carrier into the network. It clears the federal floor for interstate general freight, which is $750,000 and has not moved since January 1, 1985.
The harm a box truck does lands mostly on other people. According to IIHS, 96% of vehicle occupants killed in two-vehicle passenger-vehicle and large-truck crashes in 2024 were in the passenger vehicle. Single-unit trucks, the category holding box trucks, made up 37% of those deaths.
Commercial auto claim severity rose 78% between 2014 and 2023, while consumer prices rose 29% over the same nine years. The Insurance Information Institute and the Casualty Actuarial Society published those figures.
For a box truck operator running local routes, the practical fix is an excess layer over the $1,000,000 primary. Trucking umbrella coverage pays what runs past the auto liability limit. Amazon's $100,000 cargo minimum deserves the same test, since it is short on a full load of electronics.
If Relay insurance lapses, your company won't be able to book or haul Relay loads until it is reinstated. Amazon publishes no cure window, no appeal process, and no notice period around that. A separate federal clock runs alongside it, because a policy filed with FMCSA cannot be cancelled on less than 35 days' written notice.
Insurance details go in when you apply. Amazon's third-party vendor then pulls the certificate from the agent or insurer on file, and Amazon names RMIS as the system holding those records. A certificate you email over yourself updates nothing in RMIS.
Amazon asks carriers to update the policy through the Insurance tab at least 5 days before the old policy ends. It also recommends starting the renewal two to three weeks before expiration so RMIS has time to post the change. Neither date creates a grace period after a lapse.
Amazon publishes its minimum limits, and the endorsement requirements live in the Relay carrier agreement. The big one is additional insured status, meaning Amazon has to be named on your policy under an exact legal entity name. That entity name appears nowhere on Amazon's public Relay pages.
Freight contracts of this shape commonly ask for extra endorsements, which are add-on clauses attached to the policy. One common ask is a waiver of subrogation, meaning your insurer gives up the right to chase Amazon for costs after paying your claim. Another is primary and noncontributory wording, meaning your policy pays first instead of splitting the claim with Amazon's own coverage. A third is a notice clause requiring your insurer to tell Amazon if the policy gets cancelled. Amazon states none of them publicly, so the signed agreement matters more than the requirements page. A certificate with every published limit can still be rejected.
Send the signed carrier agreement and your declarations page to a broker before you shop anything. Ask for the certificate to be issued against the agreement's wording. Box truck insurance for Relay work means placing five separate coverage lines correctly: auto liability, cargo, general liability, workers comp, and employers liability.
Coverwatch works on a flat fee instead of commission, so the incentive runs toward a lower premium. A review prices the excess layer above Amazon's published limits.
A commercial driver's license is required at 26,001 lbs gross vehicle weight rating or above. Amazon specifies its accepted box trucks by body length rather than by weight rating. Most 26-foot straight trucks are built at 26,000 lbs so no CDL is needed, and the same body length is also sold above that line. The door-jamb sticker is the only reliable answer for a specific truck.
Amazon's published equipment list covers day cabs, sleepers, 28-foot trailers, 53-foot dry vans and refrigerated trailers, plus 16-foot and 26-foot box trucks with a functional tuck-under liftgate. Cargo vans do not appear on that list, so a van-based operation is closer to Amazon's last-mile programs than to Relay freight.
No additional insured requirement and no entity name appear on any of Amazon's public Relay pages, which cover limits only. Freight contracts of this type usually do require it, and the requirement would sit in the Relay carrier agreement, which is behind an Amazon account login. Ask for that clause before your broker issues the certificate, because the entity name has to match character for character.
Amazon's Relay FAQ states that workers compensation is required in all jurisdictions where the company operates. Amazon's February 2026 insurance page scopes the same requirement to companies with W-2 employees. Those two statements do not say the same thing. A single-member operation should confirm the wording in its carrier agreement and check its own state rule, because states treat owners and employees differently.
A Relay carrier runs under its own USDOT and MC authority, so its commercial auto policy covers the business's operations generally rather than only Amazon loads. Non-trucking liability, sometimes called bobtail coverage, is built for owner-operators who lease onto someone else's authority, and it generally does not apply to a Relay carrier. Confirm with your broker that nothing in the policy restricts coverage to specific contracts.
Amazon states that access to Relay is free, with no subscription fees or costs to join. The real cost of entry is the insurance and the operating authority behind it, plus the 180-day tenure requirement that money can't shorten. Budget for the coverage and the authority before budgeting for the truck.
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