Dakota Coffman (00:00)
For the adventurous for the backbone of America for those who rise early and rest not for the weary traveler Welcome to the Squatch Grist trucking podcast where we dive into the world of trucking Whether you're just starting or a seasoned vet join us on this adventure. We're journeying into the heart of trucking Where legends are born and the asphalt stretches into the unknown? This is where bravery and freedom collide?

Where truckers aren't just truckers, but explorers of the vast untamed highways. So strap in and buckle up because you're about to get squashed. Hey, guys, welcome back to episode 10 of the Squatchers Trucking Podcast. I'm your host, Dakota Kaufman. And in today's episode, we're going to be talking about managing your trucking insurance. And so last week, we talked obviously about, you know, managing your safer scores, how those things impact your trucking insurance.

and different topics along with that. So we're just going to kind of build off of that episode. But in this segment, we're going to deep dive into specifically the insurance side of things. And so we're going to talk about how things impact your rates, how to keep your rates down, and myriad of factors. But let's just get into this episode. If you like the content, please subscribe, follow us. A new episode comes out every Friday. And.

So we specialize in trucking insurance and in compliance services for the trucking industry. And so there's some resources linked in the description below for all of that stuff. If you're interested in any of that, you can get a free no obligation quote, or you can also get signed up for some compliance stuff and monitor your DOT number to make sure that all that stuff's staying in check. That way your insurance rates are staying competitive. So I think we can all agree that we need insurance, right?

but nobody really likes insurance or talking about insurance unless you're a nerd like I am. But we can all see the need for it, right? Even more so, we see the importance of insurance when we're trying to run a business. There's a lot of liability at stake, a lot of money at stake, and so we can kind of all grasp the concept of what insurance is and why it's so important when you're trying to run a business, especially when it comes to trucking. It creates a safety net.

for your business. And insurance can help you survive the burden of an accident or catastrophe, obviously. Insurance is expensive, and there's so many factors that go into it. So when we're looking at all of these topics and we're looking at all of these things when it comes to your trucking business, trucking insurance specifically is part of your day -to -day operation when it comes to insurance, whether it's a certificate that you're needing to get or whatever it is, right?

Insurance is a heavy part of trucking in the trucking industry, and it's an expensive part. And it's no secret that insurance rates are increasing across the board, especially this year. We've seen a lot of renewals come in and they're going up. So in 2021, and this is the most recent data I could find on this actual statistic, but insurance premiums are the fifth largest line item for trucking companies. Let's talk a little bit about what's driving these rates. Why are rates increasing?

And we can go into the argument of CEOs getting bonuses and all those things for these companies. But by and large, the reason for these increases, there's a few reasons that play into it. Part of it, post COVID, kind of seeing insurance carriers were extremely profitable during that year, and that's because there was less claims because people were driving less. And then after that, everything started to pick back up. And I don't think insurance carriers regulated.

the premiums the right way that they were supposed to after that and it kind of threw a wrench and maybe some of their accounting and the data that they had and so now we're feeling the brunt of some of that effect of them just not planning well and that's probably not the case in every scenario but it seems to be what is happening you know for the most part but there are other other things that are impacting rates as well and let's go through some of those. Truck accidents are increasing and we could

dive in for a long time on what is causing the accidents and all of that stuff, but we're not going to for sake of time, you know, and what's causing these accidents and why they're increasing. But it seems that the number one cause is driver shortage. And from 2009 to 2020, that's accidents increased total of 40%. Right now, it's currently even higher than that. And so 2019, we've seen COVID lockdowns, all of those things.

and a few cars on the road. But the most disturbing fact is that out of 100 % of fatal accidents, and I'm reading off this stat sheet here, out of 100 % of the fatal accidents that occur, 74 % of the fatal accidents are caused by large trucks. And so one of the main reasons that trucking insurance is so high is because the claims are so high. And so what we find is a semi -wreck,

does not cost the same amount of money as an SUV and a Toyota Camry, right? There's a lot more damage. There's a lot more bodily harm, usually. And so semi -claims are not small claims. Between the cargo and between the auto liability and lawsuits and all of those things that happen, there's just so many factors that play into this that that's one of the main reasons why trucking insurance is so high. The reason behind all of this, I think, is pretty simple. The demand for trucking is

steadily increasing, right? Like there's a lot of demand right now. The trucking industry is growing at a rapid rate. But the driver shortage is feeding into this problem of accidents happening and an increase of accidents happening. And there's an increase for demand in goods, which means that most drivers, they're probably working overtime, right? And so there's a driver shortage. People are having to work more. They're more tired. They're more stressed out. They can't focus as well. So there's so many factors that are contributing.

to these rising insurance costs and we could spend hours really talking about why insurance rates are rising and we're all going to have differing opinions on what we think about it, right? But at the end of the day, it is what it is. They're increasing. And so let's do, let's cover in this video how we can prevent your insurance from going up and how you can kind of control that risk. Because believe it or not, your insurance rates are semi controllable. Now, obviously the carrier dictates the rates, right?

and they say, hey, you know, for this kind of risk, we're going to take X amount of money. But we can do things to mitigate that risk and make sure that your insurance premiums aren't getting out of check. And so we're going to go through a lot of that today. And hopefully, we can give you some advice that will help you along this way and help you get your insurance premiums in check. But it really starts with our last episode. Your Safer scores are going to play a huge part.

and keeping your insurance premiums in check, your SMS scores and your CSA scores, they're gonna play a huge part in making sure that you have everything in check, right? That's kind of where it all starts, right? But a few other things that I think are playing into some insurance rates, lawyers and nuclear verdicts. Let's face it, semi -trucks have a really bad reputation when it comes to accidents.

And many times, the truck driver themselves will not even be at complete fault. But the damage that's caused and the amount of damage that's caused to the property, the vehicle, it's always more when it's a semi truck, right? And so the stats are stacked against you because a lawyer sees big money, right? And so this is just another reason why insurance rates are what we've seen. Most fatal road accidents are caused by semi trucks. And so they have a lot of leverage when they go into these courtrooms because they can say, well, look at the stats, right?

and they can, you know, spout off all these statistics. But really, at the end of the day, it's a money game, right? Money talks. Lawyers often use, you know, distracted, the argument of distracted drivers when it comes to injuries for driving. And so, they're just, like I said, you know, it's a money game and you can follow the money a lot of times. Between the increase in accidents, lawyers going after nuclear verdicts, things are just costing more in general right now.

And it is what it is. Insurance rates are on the rise. You'd be surprised to know that 75 % of accident cases are roughly lost by trucking companies. When it comes to a case in court, at least about, on average, 75 % of accident cases are lost by truckers. So the odds are stacked against you, right? And it's not fair. It's not good. We don't like it here either. So that's what happens. And so we see this a lot and we find, you know,

find this happening a lot where the claims are being paid out are a lot more than they need to be. And there's a few things for that. Maybe a lawyer's got involved or something along those lines. But when somebody sees a business and they see a truck and they see cargo and they see all of this expensive stuff, they see money and they see dollar signs. And so they're going to try to take advantage of that. And the FMCSA requires 750 ,000 liability. So most of them know that, OK, well, insurance covers at least 750 ,000.

And so they just use that for leverage, right? And it drives insurance costs up. Litigation, all of those things drive costs of insurance way up and drive them through the roof, really. And so we just see a lot of things kind of coming together right now. You have post -COVID, you have increase in accidents, you have nuclear verdicts for lawyers and lawsuits, and they see opportunities with the trucking company, all of these things kind of combining together. And it's...

It's not good. The landscape is not good right now for trucking insurance. I don't know when it'll stabilize. People are saying this year. I don't know. I couldn't tell you that. But all I know is that we're dealing with it the same way that you are. We don't like to see insurance premiums increase the way they have been this year. And even at the end of last year, we've seen so many increases. But we're going to talk a lot today about how we can prevent some of that stuff and how we can make sure that we're

putting our trucking company on the right track to managing our insurance so it doesn't make it where we have to reduce drivers. We've seen all that happen because insurance rates are just crazy right now. In the comments below, if you're feeling the heat from your rising insurance rates, just comment, let us know. We'd like to hear from you, kind of your story where you're at right now. We'd like to hear some feedback from you about what you're experiencing right now when it comes to your trucking insurance.

We're looking on making more videos kind of along these subject lines too. This is kind of our bread and butter obviously, but we'd love to hear from you. Just give us some feedback in the comments and let us know kind of where you're at when it comes to insurance. Are you feeling the heat from it, feeling the pressure from it? But let us know. Let's talk a little bit about some of the things that trucking insurance underwriters look at when they're rating your insurance. They're looking at a number of different factors, a lot of different things.

They're going to look at your losses and prior accidents, obviously, your driving record, how many crashes you've had or how many tickets you've had. They're going to look at your snapshot, your carrier snapshot, which is your SMS and CSA scores. They're going to go through all those violations, look at those things, and they're going to look at all those inspections that you failed and the ones that you've passed. They're going to go through all of that stuff to underwrite the risk, and that's going to determine your rate. That's going to be what, that's how they calculate your rate. They're going to put all this into a system, and then a computer algorithm spits out a rate form.

And so it's not like they're just sitting here writing stuff down. It's just they have the data, they put it into a system that system spits out the quote. Our first segment, let's kind of dive into some of the topics that we're going to talk about on controlling your insurance today. First segment is going to be the importance of quality drivers and safety compliance. You have to hire quality safety oriented drivers. And so you have to keep your FMCSA scores low. You have to keep your CSA and your SMS scores low.

to be able to manage your insurance. It doesn't matter if you haven't had any claims, if your SMS and CSA scores are bad, your insurance rates are going up. It's just the way it is, that's how they rate and it's how they determine these things. And one of the biggest ways that you can prevent and maintain your CSA scores is by making sure that you have quality drivers that are bought into it, right? That are safe, that do care about their truck and what it looks like.

make sure they're operating the right way. That's one of the big ones is making sure that you hire quality drivers to manage their trucks and their drivers and these loads. From a risk management perspective on my side, quality drivers are probably one of the top priorities that you can make sure you have when you're trying to keep your insurance low. Not only if you have a driver that has at least three years of experience and they have a good driving record, they have all of that stuff on their MVR,

But if they can also make sure that your CSA and SMS scores are staying intact and where they need to be, that's an invaluable asset to your company. And that will help you maintain long longevity for your company and help you grow the right way and grow steadily and keep your insurance costs at bay. But in simple terms, lower percentiles on your SMS and safety scores means lower insurance premiums. That's just a basic way to look at it. If you have the lower percentage rates and you have lower out of service and you have good inspections,

your insurance rates are going to be cheaper. And that's why it's so important that when you're staffing your company and you're hiring drivers, that you're hiring good, experienced drivers, high quality drivers. And I know high quality drivers are hard to find. High quality employees are hard to find. It's very, very important that you do. It's important for the longevity of your company. It's important to keep all your costs in check. And so it's just so, so important. We actually have a video. I can't remember the episode. Episode five or six, I think.

where we talked about how to hire good drivers and hire safe drivers and creating that culture of safety. So go back and listen to that one. I'll actually link it here, so you can click on that and go watch that too if you'd like. But yeah, hiring good drivers, experienced drivers, is such a key part to managing your insurance. And that's, like I said, your SMS scores is kind of where it all starts, but there's a lot of different factors that impact your SMS scores and drivers is a big one.

and you have to be able to maintain good quality drivers. That way you can get good inspections, right? So yeah, you have to hold high standards for your company when it comes to hiring and that process that you need to implement. You have to have high quality standards for that. We talked about in episode nine on your SMS and CSA scores, they're vitally, vitally important to controlling your insurance costs. But I want to recap just a little bit here on that last episode. You can go back and listen to that, but.

The data is organized by categories and it's assigned a percentile like we talked about high percent is going to be higher insurance lower percentile is going to be lower insurance, right? The number of safety violations and inspections these are things that they're going to look at When it comes to your SMS score for insurance stuff the severity of the safety violations and crashes When the safety violations occurred with recent events weighted more heavily?

And then the number of trucks a carrier operates and the number of vehicle miles traveled. And then they're also going to look at acute and critical violations found during investigation. So whenever they're underwriting your policy and they're getting ready to give you a quote, those are just some of the things that they're going to look at in your CSA scores. So they look at this and they use these things to determine the percentile, to determine a trucking company's premium. When they're shopping your insurance and they're looking at giving you a quote, they're going to look at all these factors in your CSA scores.

And they're going to put it, like I said, they're going to put it into an algorithm, they're going to spit that info out, and that's going to determine your quote. And so if you have bad CSA scores, guess what? You're going to get a bad quote. Or if you have a bunch of good inspections, maybe you've had one off here and there. That's not bad, right? But if you've had a bunch of good ones, then your insurance is going to be better than somebody. Even if you have claims, it's going to be better than somebody that doesn't have good inspections. That's probably one of the most weighted parts whenever it comes to determining your rate.

is that CSA score. And so it's super important that you keep that in check. So let's just go through a few things here of how to keep our SMS scores in check. Hire quality drivers. Insurance companies, they look at safety records for the drivers. They look at MVRs. So hiring drivers with clean records. And another thing that you want to hire when you're looking at drivers is make sure they have at least two years of CDL experience. And that will go a long way for helping your rate too with the insurance carrier. But.

hiring them with clean records, two years of driving experience at least, that can help hire good quality drivers that won't negatively impact your insurance rate. Another thing that can help, and I know this is kind of controversial, but EOD cameras, and so I recommend only ones that face outward. I don't recommend ones that face into the cab or record into the cab. I just don't think that that's a good, I don't think that sets a good precedent for your company. At minimum, you need to have some sort of dash camera.

Number one, it can help with claims, right? If something happens or somebody says you're at fault in an accident, you can show them video footage, right? But it also can help you monitor speed and hard braking and that type of stuff. So invest in ELD and camera stuff too, because that will help you be able to manage your drivers, right? And you're hiring good quality drivers, you're trying to, but you don't necessarily know their driving habits. And you can take corrective action if you can look at an ELD and say, you know, this driver's had 12 incidents in the last week.

of heartbreaking or speeding or whatever, and then you can address that concern, right? And so it just lets you have a pulse of everything that's happening while everybody's out on the road and kind of keep your finger on it. That way you can manage your SMS scores because they get deemed. Guess what? It goes on your DOT number. And the thing is, is if you don't have anything to monitor your DOT inspections, you're not going to know about that probably until your next insurance renewal. And it's going up, and you're like, why? And the insurance...

your insurance agent's going to come back and say, well, your SMS scores look really bad because you've had bad inspections. And then you see them. And so, yeah, find you something that you can monitor the DOT inspections with that sends you an alert or whatever, but be able to keep a pulse on your drivers while they're out on the road. That way you can take corrective action if you have to, right? Because that's a strategic thing that you need to do when you're hiring these drivers and managing drivers and trying to keep all of this managed.

Otherwise, those costs can get out of control really, really fast. Okay, segment two, guys, I want to talk about leveraging technology for risk management. What I would do if I was in your shoes and you're trying to manage drivers and you're trying to keep your entrance premiums low is find you some technology that's going to help you manage three things. Manage your drivers, manage your DOT inspections, and manage your equipment. Find you something that can track those three things. And when you do that, you can make...

Educated decisions you can compile all this data right and so you can see what's happening and keep keep everything in check You know if Joe just had a bad inspection in Idaho and you can address that right away right if you have some sort of technology that alerts you when a bad inspection has happened or Stacey in Louisiana was going 90 in a 60 and you can address that right and so having those having that ability to address those concerns and address those things that are happening and

That's such a crucial aspect when it comes to maintaining your insurance and making sure everything's staying in check and managing everything. So leverage technology. Leverage that stuff that you can to help you control your bottom line. And it may be a subscription service that costs you a monthly amount, right? But if you can manage all that data, it's going to pay for itself. The ROI on that type of stuff that lets you track your data and make educated decisions off of that data for your business, it's invaluable. So let's just...

Just make sure that you're doing that. Make sure you're leveraging some sort of technology that can help you manage the back end of stuff, right? That way it doesn't impact your insurance premiums. Implement telematics technology to help reduce accidents in your company. Invest in technology and compliance that can help you monitor speeding and hard breaks and fast turns, all of that stuff. Invest in telematics that can help you track that stuff. You can view all the things, hard cornering, hard braking, all of that. You want that to be in that telematics.

And so it's also less intrusive than cameras too, right? And so if you don't want to have to have a camera, that's fine, use telematics. It can monitor speed, it can monitor braking and some other stuff that can still alert you when something negative is happening. And we have a compliance company and we can help you monitor your DOT number. We can help you monitor some of that stuff and help you get your insurance rates lower at your next renewal and just help you keep that stuff in check.

because it can get out of control really fast. But yeah, implement telematics, implement some ELD stuff, cameras, whatever you can, use that technology to leverage your ability to track all of that data and make good decisions based off of it. And at the end of the day, be able to manage your bottom line when it comes to insurance, you know, and fines and all of those things. All right, guys, segment three, I want to talk about some risk management strategies for trucking companies. So let's talk a little bit about the foundations of risk management.

and how we can implement those things into our trucking company. You have to create a safety -oriented culture among your drivers and employees. You have to define the roles, what they're expected, those expectations. You have to define those things very, very clear for people to make sure that they're doing the right thing, and that if they aren't doing the right thing, you've set that standard and you've set that precedent, and then you can address it in an efficient way, because you've already set that standard. You've already set that expectation.

Develop leadership support for risk management process. So that can be for how to report claims, how to report incidents or a bad inspection, any of that stuff, right? And so implement yourself a process. If you're running a fleet or you're managing a fleet right now, implement you some stuff that you can do for a process for that, right? A process how your drivers need to submit claims or an accident, a process for how they need to submit any sort of incident out on the road.

right, whether it's a wreck or anything like that, maybe it's not even a claim, but any sort of incident, if they fall or if they trip or they get hurt or they strain their back, have some sort of process that they can submit that to you. Probably a form of some sort, a phone call, is just not as efficient as a form can be in some ways for legal records and stuff like that. So make you a form of some sort. The third thing, make a process for them to report a bad inspection. Let's say they did have a bad inspection.

They need to have a way to report that and you need to set that expectation that that is what they need to do. Like, hey, if you have a bad inspection, I need to know right when it happens. And they have an online something, a form, they can even email you like, hey, I just got dinged for blah, blah. And they can send you the inspection report or whatever. But have those processes for that stuff. That way you can make educated decisions about your drivers and about your company and institute.

those risk management strategies around those things. And on that note, you need to create communication channels for your team. Now, there's a lot of software out there. There's like Microsoft Teams, there's maybe in your phone system, there's some sort of communication thing, but something where your team can chat together or they can communicate to you directly. We use Microsoft Teams just because that's what our ecosystem is built on, but you can use whatever. There's Monday, there's all kinds of stuff out there that's just built just for that, for teams to communicate.

And so yeah, I implement you something like that if you're managing a fleet and trying to manage drivers something that's a little more thorough or a little more professional and polished than a text message, right? Another thing you can do that's kind of cool is you can use risk management strategies as like a It's like a trust -building tool with some of your vendors and brokers and contracts You can show them some of the stuff that you have or maybe you're even your insurance like hey This is what we've implemented and I can I can help you impact your insurance and in a good way if you can say hey, I

We have this risk management practice for our fleet. Insurance carriers love that stuff. So yeah, if you can do that and you have the manpower to implement some sort of risk management strategy, and we have a compliance company that we do that for fleets and small owner operator units all the time. And so that can go a long ways to helping an underwriter approve your quote, right? And so we've seen that happen where they were kind of iffy on it because maybe inspections had been bad in the past, but now...

Well, we have a risk management plan. We're on the right track. And we're creating some of this stuff. And I'm part of this compliance company that's made this for me. Whatever, right? But at the end of the day, the insurance company looks like that. And they say, oh, this company is heading in the right direction. They're doing the right things. And another thing you have to do is you have to allow those risk management processes that you're making, you have to allow those to impact your business. So what do I mean by that? You have to allow them to impact your decision making. So if Joe gets dinged,

that you need to have a process to address that. You need a process to address negative behavior. You need a process to address continued negative behavior or repeat offenses, whatever, right? But you need to have a process in place to make sure that you're doing the right thing so you can mitigate that risk off of your company. And I'm just using drivers as an example because that's the most common, right? But you have to have something in place to be able to mitigate risk for your company when it comes to bad inspections and it comes to accidents and it comes to claims and wrecks.

all those things, you have to have something in place that can help you alleviate some of that off of the company. And I'm gonna have here a link to episode four, where it talks more about having a safety culture and creating a safety culture for your company. So you can click on that to watch that video here. So I'm gonna cover here right quick, a few specific risk management things that your drivers can do while they're out on the road. The first thing that they can do is they can maintain their vehicles with routine safety checks, pre -inspection checklist, those types of things.

Set that standard for your drivers and for your fleet that they need to do pre -inspection checklists. They need to do pre -drive checklists, all those things. And they maintain vehicles with those routine safety checks. Another thing that they need to do is adhere to company specified following distances. So like make you a process for that as well. Like, hey, this is the distance you need to have between you and another vehicle when you're driving our trucks. Another thing that you can do, and this was a good one, is avoid unnecessary roadside risks.

And so what that means is like traveling in inclement weather, you know, slowing down in work zones, that type of stuff, set some standards for your company that way. Hey, if such and such is happening, you probably need to find a rest stop or, you know, don't go over X speed in a construction zone. And another thing that that can help on the back end is if something does happen and you've had those standards in place and they're written procedures, whether it's in a handbook or whatever, if something does happen in court or...

something like that, you can say, well, we had these processes, but they didn't adhere to them. And so that can look good to a judge or anything like that. But it also looks good to an insurance company when they're underwriting your account and they're wanting to quote your account. If you can show that you have all of these things in place, like I said, they look at that as a class A account, right? They're like, hey, this account is on the right track. They're doing the right things for their trucking company. And in turn, that obviously lowers your insurance premiums. So yeah, implement some of that stuff.

some processes to make sure that you have all those things in place. Another thing you need to do is implement strict technology use rules for your drivers. You obviously know texting and driving and that type of stuff, but implement those types of processes for your drivers, set those standards. So actually texting and making phone calls while driving is responsible for a large amount of the distracted accidents that we see, which you know that. I mean, texting and driving is obviously super dangerous.

extremely distracting. So incidents, these things are easily discouraged. Maybe you can, you know, you put yourself some processes in place to make sure that you've, you've set those standards that way they know that that's the wrong thing to do, right? And you know, you have to have some repercussions to enforce those things. So that's something to think about as well. Make the standard also that they need to wear seat belts, that they have to wear seat belts while they're driving.

And then another thing you just have to create that safety culture among the drivers, they have to buy into it. And that means that you have to buy into it. Another thing you can do is install in the trucks hands -free communication, like, you know, where they can hook their phone up to it or whatever, but make sure that those, your trucks have that. And that can eliminate the need for them needing to pick up their phone and actually look at it. They can, they can, you know, hold a button for the speaker or whatever, right? And kind of like you do in a car.

So yeah, make sure that your semis are equipped or your trucks are equipped with something like that where they can be hands -free. All right guys, segment four, we're gonna talk about how fleets can take control of their insurance costs. Talked about a few topics, right? Managing your driver pool, making sure that you're hiring good, safe drivers, experienced drivers. Number two, making sure that your CSA SMS scores are in check and you have good inspections. And the third thing is implement some ELD and telematic stuff. Fourth thing is just making sure that you have a culture of safety.

and that you're promoting that in your business. But I want to talk a little bit more about how we can adopt some of these things and how we can manage some of this stuff. We know quality drivers, they can significantly lower the risk of accidents. They drive safer, they're more experienced or whatever, right? But they can drastically lower the rate of accidents. This is a huge piece when it comes to managing your insurance. You have to find the right drivers. You have to find good drivers.

And I know you feel the pressure, right, to scramble and find a driver, but make sure that they are good quality drivers. Another thing you can do is choose operational locations. So where a fleet operates can also affect insurance rates. Using telematics and GPS stuff, insurers can analyze traffic patterns and they can establish rates based off of those things. And so fleets, if you can stay away from high risk areas, right,

You know, like DFW would probably be a high risk area or Houston or Atlanta. Something like that would be, you know, a high risk area. And so if you can say, oh, we go there sometimes, but we mostly operate or whatever, right? But that is just another way that they calculate your risk and high risk areas can impact your rate in a negative way. Another thing that you can do to manage some of this stuff is adopt advanced safety technologies. And so, like I said, this is like telematics. This is like ELDs.

In -cap cameras, automatic braking, automatic emergency braking stuff, all of these things, they play a pivotal role in creating this risk management thing for your company. And that's essentially what we're trying to do. We're trying to make it so you don't have to use the insurance on a regular basis. And so just implementing some of this technology can help us as drivers drive safer, make them more engaged, that type of stuff. And so...

If you're managing a fleet and you're having a hard time managing some of that stuff and your insurance rates are kind of getting out of control, implement some of these things. Use some technology to help you leverage that stuff and create the data that you need to make some educated decisions on how to manage your insurance. So that's going to be your EOD, your telematics, all of that stuff. Being able to track all this data is such a huge piece when it comes to managing your insurance costs. And another tip here, some insurance carriers offer telematics for your company.

And so what they'll do is they'll have a little plug -in thing that you'll plug into your truck and they'll give you a discount for that. And so if you can find a carrier that will do some telematic stuff, a lot of times that can help you get a little bit better rate because you're willing to allow telematics in your trucks. And it's stuff that they do get a report on. They do get a report on heartbreaking and speeding and hard cornering and all that stuff. But really, in all honesty, this is something that you should already have if you're managing a fleet.

to be able to see that data and make sure that you're not going to get in more accidents, that type of stuff. And that's what they're trying to prevent. They're trying to make it where there's less claims and less accidents by tracking that data. And you being able to see it, if it's a heartbreaking event or a speeding event, that creates your awareness of it, right? And then at that point, you can address that situation as you need to. And so yeah, before you even get to quotes or before you even get to insurance, you should have already implemented.

some telematics stuff and some stuff like that and then you know, you've you're already in a good place But but if you don't have telematics now, there are some carriers out there that will allow you to plug that device in You know and it does decrease your rates It can help help you help your insurance premium be a little lower than what it would be Maybe without telematics as there's a lot of stats out there for the data between telematics and it improving your safety scores There's a lot a lot of data out there to support that

So use telematics. Besides finding good quality drivers, the other biggest thing that you can do is use telematics to control your insurance. Those are the two biggest things probably, because those two things will eliminate all the other issues that are going to drive up your insurance costs. Your CSA scores, your SMS scores, claims and recs and bad MVRs, all those other factors that are going to drive your insurance up. All of that stuff can be mitigated by implementing

good technology and telematics and finding good quality drivers. Those two things can eliminate a lot of burden off of you when it comes to your insurance. So yeah, I know insurance right now is not fun for you. Like I said, we'd love to hear from you kind of where you're at, what you're feeling. Are you feeling the heat from insurance right now or the economy in general? We'd love to hear from you, get some feedback. Comment below, let us know. Subscribe guys, let us know if you like the content, give us a like. And you know, this is a...

Episode 11, like I said, we drop episodes every week. And so episode 11 will come out next week and we'll kind of build off a little bit here more on insurance stuff and some compliance stuff as well. So let's just recap what we went over before we close out here. We talked about how telematics can help you tremendously in managing the data for your company, managing safe drivers, finding good solid drivers is another big key aspect. Other technology that you can implement like cameras and different things like that.

looking maybe at carriers that offer telematics, discounts, those types of things. But other than that, that's pretty much all we covered. We hope this video helps you out. If you're having trouble managing your insurance, we would love to hear from you and we'd love to help you out with it. We have a compliance company and we are also an insurance agency as well. But the compliance piece that we have, we've seen it help a lot of people manage their DOT inspections and make some educated decisions on drivers and kind of the next steps that they need to make.

But we'd love to help you out if you're having if you're struggling to manage your insurance and your insurance rates are kind of getting out of control We'd love to help you out with that But that's all I got for you today guys. We hope you enjoyed it. We'll catch you on episode 11 next week We thank you for tuning in guys. We appreciate it. We'll see you