THE SECRETS OF TRUCKING INSURANCE!!

What is going on guys and gals, it is your boy JLove coming back after another video. In this video, like the title says, we're going to be talking about trucking insurance, what they don't tell you. Guys and gals, thank you so much for being a part of this video. Thank you for being part of this channel. My name is Jason Love, co-owner of Flash Love Logistics, LLC. We are a hotshot and full-size semi-trucking company out of Missouri. We've been around since October of 2020, and I've made videos ever since we started with one non-CDL hotshot setup. So if it's your first time here, think about subscribing. I got a lot of videos to watch. Going over basically everything you need to know about trucking, how to start your own company, go from there, how to be successful in hotshot, or just regular trucking. Now, in this video, guys, we're going to be talking about trucking insurance. Now, this is going to be a very important video, especially if you're trying to start your own trucking company, because you're going to learn a lot about stuff that you probably didn't know. Or if you're coming up on your renewal for insurance and you're kind of thinking, obviously, you're very happy because you're going to get a better insurance company, all these good things are going to happen. I kind of want to go over the good, the bad, the ugly when it comes to insurance. Now, first off, we're going to be talking about Progressive. The reason I want to start with Progressive, that's probably going to be your first insurance provider if you are getting into trucking or hotshot trucking, and it's going to be expensive. When we first started with Progressive, we were paying for one non-CDL hotshot setup and one non-CDL hotshot driver, who was, I think, 26. We paid $2,700 a month. That's how much we paid. Now, after a couple of months, we realized that wasn't really feasible, so we had to change some stuff up, but that's what we started paying. Now, Progressive is going to be expensive depending on who you are, what kind of company you have, what you're trying to do. If you're trying to get in on non-CDL hotshot and you're trying to commercially haul with a driver that's younger and doesn't have a CDL, or maybe it's you and you don't have a CDL, you're going to pay a lot. But chances are, no matter who you are, if you have a brand new MC number, brand new company, brand new DOT numbers, you're going to have to go with Progressive. There's not a lot of insurance companies that are even going to get you a quote. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to brokers, you shouldn't try, but it's most likely going to be Progressive. They're most likely just going to go to Progressive. That's how it's going to work, right? I would say to go through a broker when it comes with Progressive. You can call them directly and do all of that, but it makes life a lot easier when you're looking to get certificates of insurance, which you'll have to get a lot of them if you go through a broker, because usually they have a system to help you get them. Now, the good things about Progressive, though, and there are some good things. Honestly, we just did our renewal a couple of days ago and we went back with Progressive, which we'll get into that. But there are some good things about Progressive. They have a lot of flexibility, right? Once you actually have two years of authority, whatever the case may be, you're going to go into some different insurance companies that are not going to have a lot of flexibility. They're going to want drivers with at least two years of CDL experience. They're going to want newer vehicles, newer trucks. They're going to want to understand everything you're hauling. They're going to ask a lot of questions. They might want you to have a dash camera. They might want connection with your logs. They're going to monitor the speeds you go at. They're going to have a system that calls you if you're speeding, whatever the case may be. They're going to have a lot of different systems in place to mitigate liability and risk. Progressive, on the other hand, they're very flexible. They're not really going to have any of that. They do have a system where you can hook up your ELD and they give you a discount, which obviously I would do that if I was you. But besides that, they're not going to require you to have dash cameras. They're not going to require you to have drivers that have more than two years of driving experience. They're not going to require a lot of these things. That's useful, especially when you're first starting your company. Maybe you only have six months or a year of CDL experience before starting your company, or maybe you have a brand new CDL. Progressive will be a company that you can use. Now, another reason Progressive is pretty good, if you're having a company where, let's say you have multiple trucks, or you're leasing trucks on to your company, or whatever the case may be, Progressive is lenient when it comes to adding trucks and trailers and drivers and taking trucks, trailers, and drivers off. They don't use a third-party finance company, which we'll get into that as well. They're financing in-house your policy. They will prorate your rates. If you are taking trucks off, they will allow you to take trucks off. They'll allow you to add more trucks on without raising many eyebrows or asking many questions. Now, if you're consistently adding one truck, taking one truck off, whatever the case may be, trying to finesse the system, they obviously are going to ask questions, and you definitely should not do that. When it comes to trucking insurance, let's say, for example, you have a company of three or four trucks. You have one truck that, as a lease-on, has a catastrophic breakdown and won't be on the road for three months. Obviously, you're not going to be able to afford the insurance. The person who's leased on to you, they're not going to be able to afford the insurance because they're not going to be on the road. Progressive is a company that's going to make life a lot easier for you to be able to get that truck off of your policy for three, four, five months and to be able to re-add that truck again. Not every insurance company is like that. It's really easy and it takes that risk off of you when it's like, okay, I have this $6,000 a month policy or $7,000 a month policy. I only actually own one truck, but I have three guys leased on. Maybe their trucks break down or maybe they're done. They want to get off the road. It's really easy to take them off the policy right there. The rate will be prorated. Your next payment might not reflect everything it needs to reflect, but the payment after that definitely will. That's something I thought was going to be the same with every company, but it's definitely not. Progressive is a very viable option. They provide insurance to a lot of new companies. They provide insurance to older companies with competitive rates and they're very flexible. One thing you do have to realize with Progressive is there are some freight brokers that aren't going to use you because you have Progressive insurance. I want to explain why. Now Progressive has a system where an insurance broker, so you're going to go through an insurance broker like I talked about. There's tons of insurance brokers out there. You'll have them call you and hit you up all day when it's time for your renewal or if you're starting a company, if you apply for your MCDOT numbers, they're going to hit you up and be like, you need insurance, you need insurance. They're not really going to be able to do anything crazy for you. They're just going to send you to Progressive once they know you're a brand new company, which is fine. You do need to use a broker. What they can do, and this is what's happened in the past, is Progressive has a system built. They don't really have physical human underwriters. They have a system that an insurance broker or if you call Progressive directly, they're going to go in and they're going to ask you the exact same questions. They're going to fill into the system and the system's going to spit out a quote. It's the same as if you can go online through Progressive and get a quote. It's the same system. They're going to ask you what truck, trailer, VINs, driver's information, have you had any accidents? They're going to ask you what type of hauling you're doing, do your drivers have CDLs? They're going to ask you all of these questions. But the main questions, the most important questions, they're going to ask you in what radius are you operating? Let's say, for example, if you live in Missouri, you can say, well, I only operate about 250 miles away from my home base. They're going to draw a 250 mile circle around your house and that's kind of where your insurance is going to quote you off of. That's also what they're going to expect you to do. So if you leave that 250 mile radius, you can have problems. So what we say always is the truth. We haul over 500 miles all the time. So really Progressive kind of circles the entire United States when it comes to my insurance quote and they know that we could possibly haul any of these different states. But what happens is you have brokers that want to earn your business. They want to win the bid. I've had this happen to me before where they're going to go into the Progressive system and they're going to say, you might tell me I haul over 500 miles all the time. You know, I'm hauling general freight. I'm hauling lumber. I'm hauling steel. I'm hauling XYZ. They might go on Progressive and say, okay, well, I know what he told me, but let me put in that he only hauls 300 miles away from his home. He only hauls lumber. He only hauls, you know, small heavy machinery. Now, that quote is going to be a lot less, you know, so they're going to hit you with the quote and you're going to be like, wow, this is great because it's probably going to be a lot less than what you've seen before. But then once you kind of see the meat and potatoes, you understand that it's limiting to you. Now, a lot of those brokers aren't going to tell you that, you know, they're going to let you buy in the quota. They should be fine. But then what happens when you get in, you get in some sort of a claim or wreck, you know, outside of what they've said you've done, you know, you're going to have a lot of issues. You might have cheaper insurance, but at that point you're going to have a lot of issues. So what's happened with these freight brokers is the people that have Progressive, they've hauled for these freight brokers. They've had claims, but the claims were not backed by their insurance because of, you know, the issues we're talking about right now. And so then Progressive denies the claim and then the freight broker has to sue you and all this baloney. So you don't want to mess with that, right? So you've got to watch out for that. Make sure when you do get this quote from this person, you're going through the fine print, you're looking at, okay, what's the radius say? What's it say I'm hauling? Is this actually what I'm doing? Is this, you know, what I'm going to be covered for? So you need to check that a hundred percent. Okay. So understand that with Progressive. And so you will have an issue where some freight brokers don't want to use Progressive insurance carriers. I've only ran into about three different brokers that won't use. And it's not really brokers that are used that much anyways. So definitely note that. So let's go ahead and talk about other insurance companies that aren't Progressive. Now there's another company called Berkshire Hathaway. That's probably going to be a company that might give you a quote when you're first starting. They never were able to give us a quote for whatever reason. I've never used them. But once you hit two years of active authority, there are going to be other companies that will give you quotes, hopefully, or will say that they'll give you a quote or will say that they'll use you until they run into something they don't like. Now over the last three years, three separate renewals that we went through, we obviously have used Progressive. We used another company called Coverwell and Everspan. Now Coverwell and Everspan wasn't a bad company. They were actually our insurance from 2023 to 2024 before we went back to Progressive. They gave us a really good rate out the door. We were at about $950 per truck, trailer, and driver for six trucks and six trailers and six drivers, and everything was good. Now one thing you're going to run into with other insurance companies that aren't Progressive, basically almost any other insurance company out there, most likely they're going to require dash cameras. Coverwell required 360 dash cameras in every truck, which wasn't a huge issue. It wasn't a problem. They connected to our ELDs, which Progressive will give you the option and it'll save you some money, so I definitely would do it. But they required to connect to our ELDs, which was fine. And then we had to be a part of the dash camera, which was like Orion Fleet Management. And so anytime that they picked up that we were speeding or that we hit the brakes too hard or did something, they would call me about once a week, send me their reports, and they would text me and do all this stuff. But the issue was that they, a lot of times, would pick up the speed of an on-ramp or an off-ramp if my driver is driving by it, and then say my driver is going 40 or 50 miles over the speed limit, which I knew wasn't even possible when he's on an interstate because I didn't think his truck would move that fast. But that was some of the issues. So it got kind of annoying with them hitting me up all the time, but it was just a requirement. It wasn't super bad. It wasn't super terrible. It wasn't a problem. Now the issues that we did run into with, you know, using this other insurance, and you are going to run into with other insurance that aren't Progressive and aren't like, Berkshire Hathaway, they're going to be using third-party finance companies. Now these third-party finance companies are interesting, right? So if you go with Progressive, they're going to insure you in-house, right? They basically give you the quote, whatever, you pay them your down payment, you're going to be good to go. Down payment is usually about 16 or 17 percent. You'll be fine, right? And you can cancel whenever it's going to be. You're going to be good. These third-party finance companies, though, they're, like I said, they're a different company. I'm paying a different company that financed CoverWell with all the money they need for my policy. Now one issue we ran into with a third-party finance company was when I tried to take a truck, trailer, and driver off my policy. So I went to CoverWell, said, hey, I'm taking this truck, trailer, and driver off my policy. I had to send them a signed letterhead saying this truck was not going to run for my company anymore, which obviously is another hoop I had to jump through with Progressive. And then they said, okay, they took the truck, driver, and a trailer off my policy. And then I was hoping that it would reflect in my rate the next time that we paid insurance, because when you're paying insurance, it's expensive for every truck, driver, and trailer, right? So if you go out there and it's $1,200 per truck, driver, and trailer, that truck's not on the road, that's going to hurt you, right? You're not going to be able to come up with that money. It took 90 days before that reflected in my policy rate. So for the next three months, I paid just my normal rate for every truck, trailer, and driver, even though that one truck was not on the road at all and wasn't even on my policy. Now, after those 90 days, they did prorate my insurance for the remainder of my policy. So it did, obviously my insurance did go down, but I did have to come up with that money out of pocket for every payment before that. And if you were in a situation that I was, I mean, we were struggling. I mean, everyone's struggling in trucking. If you didn't have the money, you're just going to be screwed, right? You're not going to be able to pay it. I couldn't call them and say, hey, this isn't even on my policy, make it happen right now. They couldn't, right? And that's one thing why going with a company like Progressive, they can really prorate that rate right there and it's not going to be an issue. But with this third-party finance company, it became an issue. So if you have a multi-truck company and you're looking to go through a company that does use a third-party finance company, just take that into effect. If you're leasing people on and they get off the road, you might actually have to cover their insurance for three more months without them being on the road or paying you anything at all. You will get the money back, but you'll have to do it. You'll have to do it right then, right? So that was one issue we ran into that I was not ready for. Another issue was when it came to oversize. Now, when I talked to my insurance broker, I told him everything because I've had bad luck in the past. You can watch videos about it when it came to brokers lying. And I want to make sure we are completely 100% on the same page. And I told him, hey, we do oversize up to 12 foot wide. We don't do oversize by height. We don't do oversize by weight. We just do width. We don't use pilot cars, right? We'll do, you know, maybe a 10 foot wide piece of whatever, you know, nothing crazy. Now, what happens is when you're doing oversize and you're going to go through the state of Ohio, they require a form called an OS32. Now with Progressive and other insurance we've had, it hasn't been an issue. But when I called, you know, my broker to get me an OS32, he called me and said that Coverwell declined to do one. And I said, why? He said, well, you're not covered for oversize. And I said, what are you talking about? He's like, Coverwell does not cover for oversize. I said, I remember us having this conversation where I told you that we do oversize. He said, oh, I don't remember. I was like, man, I remember where I was sitting in my car when we had this. Because like I said, I've already told you, we talked about this too. I said, when I first started, I had played games, I don't play the games. I didn't even know the games existed. But I had people play games on me when it came to insurance. I did not want to have these issues. So we ran into that, where they wouldn't give us an OS32. And it came down to having conversations with the brokers and basically telling them, hey, you know, there's nothing on my policy right now that says I'm not covered for oversize. I know that we have a recorded conversation where I talked about being covered for oversize. And we got to the point where Coverwell would cover us for the remainder of our policy when it came to oversize under 12 foot wide. But they would still not give us an OS32. And we had a load on our trailer that needed to go through Ohio. And the way the OS32 works is you can go through interstates in Ohio without an OS32. But it's for public highways, public roads that you're going to need the OS32, basically stating that the state of Ohio is not at fault if anything falls off your trailer, truck tips over, whatever the case may be. So they need that form, which some of you guys have probably had that form sent out. So that was another issue we ran into when it came to having this insurance company. Now, they also had other requirements. And this will be the same requirements. You know, they require drivers have at least two years of CDL class A experience. They require newer trucks. They required, you know, obviously the dash cameras, hooking up to our ELD, all of these different things that were required from this insurance company. So it's just really important to understand what you're going to be getting yourself into and the hassles that you're going to have to go through when it comes to changing insurance, right? Now, right now with Progressive, we actually did our renewal and they had us for about $1,000 per truck, trailer, and driver. I did end up taking some trucks off the company. Some of the guys, you know, have older equipment and they're kind of taking a different step. But it brought us up to about $1,100 per truck, trailer, and driver, which really is not bad at all. I upped our cargo to 250,000 just because there are some loads out there that require up to 250,000. And just with how easy Progressive is to use, I think it's the best bet going forward. That being said, it's not the best insurance out there. There are going to be some brokers that aren't going to use us, but I make sure that our insurance insures us for exactly what we are doing when we are doing it. So if we have any issues, you know, there's nothing coming back on us, right? So you need to make sure of that as well. No matter what insurance company you're using, make sure they know exactly what you're hauling, right? I mean, you don't have to give them a super detailed list, but you have a general list that's going to cover everything. They know if you're doing oversized, they know the radius you're going to be running. They know all of these different things because you do not want to be caught with your pants down if you have an issue, right? And those insurance brokers, they're not there to help you all the time, right? They're going to screw you. You know, they don't care. So make sure you're covering your own butt when it comes to insurance. I hope you guys can learn something from this video and I hope you all have a great day.