B2B integration provider Kleinschmidt has announced it is partnering with freight insurance provider Loadsure to launch one-click, pay-as-you-go cargo insurance. Made available through FreightLaunch, Kleinschmidt’s new digital freight enablement platform, this solution will enable brokers and carriers to add comprehensive coverage to spot or contract freight in real-time. The spontaneity behind the process also accelerates claim settlements, reducing time intervals from weeks or months to just a few minutes.
FreightWaves spoke with Phil Johnson, the director of marketing at Kleinschmidt, to dive deeper into FreightLaunch and understand Loadsure’s impact on the platform. Johnson explained that FreightLaunch’s unique selling proposition in the market is that it fills a technology gap in the trucking industry that is often overlooked.
“Electronic data interchange (EDI) is ubiquitous; it isn’t going anywhere – shippers mandate its use. If you’re a carrier or a broker that is just getting started or still defining your technology stack, you’re missing out on business because you’re unable to meet the EDI requirements of your shippers – maybe because you’re not using a transportation management system [TMS] yet, or perhaps because you don’t have a technology team,” said Johnson.
“We built FreightLaunch to be that digital freight enablement tool that leverages our trucking EDI expertise in getting companies compliant and off the ground quickly – even if they don’t have that technical knowledge,” he continued.
Kleinschmidt’s association with Loadsure initiated at the 2019 FreightWaves LIVE: Chicago event, with the conversation veering towards freight insurance. Johnson mentioned that Kleinschmidt has always been keen on solutions that claim to “take the difficult and distill it into the easy.” This led the company to integrate Loadsure’s insurance solution into FreightLaunch, even when it was outside of Kleinschmidt’s competence.
“From our perspective, it distills a complex process into an easy to use solution that can potentially hedge real risk. If I’m an individual using a parcel carrier to ship packages for my business on a regular basis, I have the opportunity to easily purchase additional insurance coverage at the point of sale for the occasional high value or specialty shipment as it comes across the plate. We see it as extending that same opportunity to the carriers using our application to comply with EDI and manage their shipments,” said Johnson.
The FreightLaunch platform, which integrates with Loadsure, is an evolution of Kleinschmidt’s legacy kShip product. FreightLaunch enables companies to receive and accept loads via EDI. Companies can send status updates on shipments, electronically invoice their customers, and supply the GPS tracking data required by many shippers.
“FreightLaunch has dozens of takers. We look at it as a first step – growing companies implement FreightLaunch to enable them to do more business. Our goal is to help them grow so big that they require the enterprise-level applications of the many high-caliber TMS partners that we work with,” said Johnson.
The feedback from the initial crop of adopters has been positive. Johnson said that companies that are dreading EDI implementation were typically surprised at the ease and swiftness of the process. “Companies love the training, and they appreciate the expertise of our implementation team. Users that have worked with other enterprise platforms are relieved that using the product is simple in comparison,” he said.
