Hotshotting with my personal truck

Hey guys. New here. So I’m at a crossroad. And haven’t been able to find anything online about this. So I currently have a Ram 3500 dually that I’d financed personally couple years back. Well after all this covid and having to close down my construction business. I’ve decided to try hotshot trucking. I’m stuck though. I have the truck and trailer. But I can’t get commercial insurance unless I transfer my truck and trailer to my LLC. Covid has really impacted my credit score and I cannot refinance my truck to transfer the title to my LLC. How can I get around this? Can I just use my truck and trailer to work without having to transfer them to LLC? I’ll gladly transfer them if I can work to make the funds to just pay the truck off and transfer the title to LLC. But currently getting refinanced or any kind of financing is out of the question. What can I do to start working sooner? What are my options? Has anyone else experienced something like this? thanks in advance.

 

ok so you’re saying I should be able to get my own authority (DOT & MC #’s) with the LLC and then hire/lease out the numbers to myself and keep the truck and trailer in my name? I’ll have to ask my insurance how that works. Do you have any other suggestions I can possibly do? Would it matter that I am the owner of the LLC?

 

I spoke to FMCSA and from what I understood they said I don’t need to transfer my truck to LLC. Once I get my own authority (DOT & MC #’s) my insurance policy will go on to my MC number. Then once I add my MC number to truck it’ll be insured with what the FMCSA requires. I’m still unsure if I’ll need a personal policy for the truck but I’ll call that OOIDA and see what they say or try and talk to the insurance department at FMCSA. If those fail I’ll most likely have to lease the truck to my LLC and go that route.

I live in California. (Hate this state but can’t leave due to child custody) I agree starting a new business with bad credit and minimal cash does suck. But it’s possible if you’re willing to get creative and figure it out. I’ve only ever worked for myself the last 15 years and don’t know how not to. So I’m starting something new that interests me. If I can get my construction business back up I will but it took a major hit with covid so going to try something new.

 

Not exactly what I was asking but that is something I’d like to know. From my understanding, after speaking to the FMCSA was that the commercial insurance goes onto my MC and not the truck. The truck will be covered under the commercial policy once I put the MC numbers on it. When I had asked my current personal insurance about switching to commercial insurance they said I had to transfer the title. So I may just try a different insurance company and shop around on Monday. I’ll also call OOIDA to get info from them and see what they say. Being that FMCSA said the insurance goes I to my MC it does bring up my question that you mentioned. Will my truck itself need it’s own personal insurance as well? Also I’ve gotten my DOT number and I seen what my MC number is on the online portal @FMCSA, so while my application is processing, do I have to get the insurance and BOC-3 before they fully approve my application? Can I use my process of service agent that I used when creating my LLC or does it have to be a DOT specific separate process of service agent that covers all states to fulfill the BOC-3 requirements?

You’ve been a big help and I think you solved the issue in if I need to have the truck in business name and what to do being that I can’t put it into the businesses name. Now I’d just like to understand the rest of the insurance stuff. Thank you for recommending OOIDA. I’ve been going over and doing all their online courses about all things. I’ve been able to inform myself of a ton especially when it’ll come to my New Entrant Safety Audit and what to do and not do.