Insurance Premium

$150,000 (cdn$) cargo is plenty, unless you have one customer that has lots of work and requires more. Usually not worth the extra yearly premium for extra cargo insurance. Cargo amount drives up the premium very quickly. Freight theft, and such.

Why are you limiting the radius for work? That quote would be good if it was unlimited radius. Who are you using for getting a quote? Does that quote include a trailer valued at x? And also include your dad as the driver?

 

Oh that is not only 400 miles but that is Canada only as well? The high cargo amount is driving it up faster than I figured it would. I have hauled 1 load for TX and 1 load for Bison and neither of them required 250k cargo.

When you add the trailer and whatever it is valued at, old maybe 8 grand new could be 65 grand, will add more to that premium... you don't have the full picture yet. Has your broker asked you to estimate what you will be hauling, as a percentage of yearly loads, and their approximate values? They should be asking you this.

One other thing, are your customers going to be requiring trailers be no more than 10 years old at the most? Something else to consider. Common in the dry van world.

 

When I did dry van a bunch of years ago lots of the places required 10 years old maximum. That was mainly auto parts related work. I can't really speak for everything else. $1300 is very inexpensive. My thinking is what is wrong with it? The thing is when they get old enough, forklifts sometimes fall through the floor. That is what has led to the age requirement.

 

Get at least 3 or 4 quotes.

 

Yeah, all brokers will send your quote to 4 companies and 2 of them have no interest in you because they only deal with companies with 5 or more trucks. There are only 2 companies that will insure you. It's a Canada thing. Old Republic will likely be the best choice. I use them.

Usually most brokers require $100k cargo. I do $150 because that covers my odd meat load and also over the $100k usd considering the currency conversion. I had a customer that required $500k and it would have been an additional $8000 yearly above the $150k rate I pay now. It was not worth it in the end.

The insurance companies will send all the same rate to the broker and then the broker will add whatever their surcharge is and give you the quote. You are not allowed to deal directly with an insurance company by law.