Life Happens 365 - Are You Managing the Risk?

By Diane Tait Image courtesy flickr If you’re a commercial trucker, you should know that the US House of Representatives is doing its best to increase your liability requirements nearly seven-fold.   You heard me right.   HR 3781 which was sponsored by Representative Matt Cartwright in July 2019, proposes to raise the minimum liability limit you are required by law to carry from $750,000 to $4, 923,153.29.   The bill which was named “Improving National Safety by Updating the Required Amount of Insurance Needed by Commercial Motor Vehicles per Event Insurance Act of 2019,” is being touted as a necessary update to the commercial trucking insurance law that has been on the books since 1980.   The reason given by Mr. Cartwright for the seven-fold increase in the requirements was that $4,923,153.29 is the amount needed to achieve the same purchasing power as $750,000 with regards to medical-cost inflation.   That’s the bad news.   The good news is that...

By Diane Tait Image courtesy wikimedia If you’ve ever taken the time to listen to truckers conversing with one another on CB radio, you might think you’d entered a foreign country.   That’s because CB lingo is as cryptic to the uninitiated as Greek would be to most Americans.   Even worse, while many of the words spoken on radio by the typical trucker might be readily recognizable, the meaning of those words is anything but to all save other truckers.   So, if you don’t know an Alligator from a Wiggle Wagon, I thought I’d take the time to clue you into the ABC’s of CB radio lingo.

By Diane Tait Image courtesy wikimedia Autonomous vehicles are all the rage these days.   You can’t turn on the TV or fire up an online newsfeed without hearing or reading about an auto manufacturer that is putting billions into developing self-driving car technology.   Even Tesla is now spending big bucks to develop automated big rigs.   With this in mind, the commercial trucking industry is in for a rethink on a massive scale in the not too distant future.   The question is, how will this new technology affect the livelihoods of the 3.5 million professional truck drivers in this country. 1.       Invasion of the Robo-Rigs? –   Since 2017, the Internet has been abuzz about the coming age of the robo-rigs.     These 18-wheeled behemoths are supposedly the vanguard of a myriad of other driverless commercial vehicles that are predicted to invade the highways and byways of this country within the next few years. ...

By Diane Tait Image courtesy of wikimedia If it’s one thing that all truckers can agree on, it’s the importance of maximizing uptime without sacrificing safety.   The ability to earn a living behind the wheel is only as good a driver’s ability to get hired.   While employers want to get their goods to market as quickly as possible, nobody wants to employ a driver that puts their cargo at risk.   Likewise, no insurance carrier wants to carry a driver on the books with moving violations or accidents on their record.   This puts truckers in the unenviable position of trying to balance time on the road with the hazards inherent to highway driving.   One of the biggest hazards that truckers face is driver fatigue.

By Diane Tait Image courtesy of A&B Insurance While every trucker knows that over the commercial truck insurance is expensive, they also realize it’s a necessary part of doing business as a trucker.   That being said, all trucking insurance policies are not created equal.   As you know, hauling cargo long distance is a risky business.   Aside from the risk of damage to the truck, there are also other factors that come into play, including damage or loss to the cargo, not to mention theft of the cargo or truck itself.   Commercial truck insurance is designed to help truck owners mitigate the risks to themselves and their drivers.   If you are an owner operator this doubles the potential for liability in the event of a crash or theft.