Owner-operators have unique insurance needs, and it matters whether you have your own authority or are leased to a carrier. Either way, it’s important to understand what coverage you need and find policies that fit your budget.
A lot has been spoken about how the freight industry is sluggish on the uptake with regard to adopting technology, but the truth is, the industry needs a better understanding of demographics than it does technology.
Recently, there were a couple of Facebook posts from owner-operators asking for advice on where to look for new insurance. One poster said their insurance company was dropping them because their “maintenance scores” were too high. What, they asked, did that mean?
With third-quarter GDP coming in at 3.2% growth and fourth-quarter GDP also expected to best the 3% mark, which would be the third consecutive quarter of 3%-plus growth, and a newly minted tax plan promising to start moving the economy forward, times would appear to be ripe for trucking.
The saying goes that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. If you’re a commercial vehicle operator, though, you can add another: rising insurance costs.
For business owners, one of the main questions surrounding the new tax law is the corporate tax rate. At 21%, it is lower than the pass-through rate for businesses, which is capped at 25%. That has some asking the obvious question: Should I change my company’s status from a pass-through corporation to a corporate structure?
With millions of commercial vehicles now running electronic logging devices (ELD), concerns have been raised about cyber attacks. That concern is leading to more interest in cyber insurance policies.
It is estimated that truck driver vacancies have reached nearly 50,000 this year and if the trend continues, it could explode to six figures in the next decade. Could immigrants fill those gaps?
The days of drivers carrying around multiple credit cards to handle life on the road are quickly disappearing. Once, drivers might have a company credit card for expenses, a fuel card to pay for fuel, and even their own card for non-job-related expenses, but that is all changing as innovations in fuel cards might be making the company credit card obsolete.
While more and more fleets are utilizing thousands of data points to make operational decisions, insurance providers are tapping into those same data points to help create more accurate risk profiles of carriers and their drivers to build improved insurance offerings for those fleets. And at a lower cost in some instances.
The increasing use of mobile technology has spawned a new industry that many in trucking – from drivers to fleets – can take advantage of: peer-to-peer (P2P) payments.
A few years ago, cameras in trucks were viewed negatively by nearly everyone. That has started changing as more providers perfected the systems and word started getting out on how a camera could save a fleet from a million-dollar lawsuit, not to mention reducing risky driving behaviors.
When you run a trucking business that has weekly and daily bills such as salaries and fuel, but shippers pay at 30, 60 or even 90 days, ensuring you have the proper cash flow to maintain operations can be tricky. That’s why many owner-operators and smaller fleets have turned to invoice factoring.
Larger fleets sometimes control their insurance costs by self-insuring. Smaller fleets, though, often don’t have the financial resources to self-insure, so more of them are turning to “captive” insurance programs.
Fuel surcharges have a long history in the transportation industry, dating back to the Arab oil embargo in 1973 by most accounts. While the early days of surcharges were straightforward to calculate, that is no longer true, and they may not even be the best way to manage costs anymore.
If your small trucking company seems like it is operating on a week-to-week basis, you are not alone. According to a new survey from Mercator Advisory Group, 75% of small businesses in the U.S. routinely delay purchases at least once or twice a year because of cash flow issues. You can minimize this impact, though, through proper planning.
Fleets do not have to be stuck paying high insurance premiums as there are a number of choices they can make to lower their risk profile and cost. Here are 10 ways to help do that.
There are times in every business owner’s life when you need cash. The business has hit a rough patch, an unexpected expense has arrived, or a new business opportunity has presented itself, but you don’t have the money to take advantage. So how do you get the money?
Like taxes, insurance can be confusing. Many carriers, especially smaller carriers without dedicated insurance experts on the payroll, are at the mercy of an insurance provider. But armed with a little knowledge, carriers can make more informed purchasing decisions.
Filing your taxes can be confusing enough, try writing tax law. The complications in writing a tax law is one of the reasons the nation has not seen a major revamp of current law since the 1980s. Here are some of the key provisions in the draft bills.
