Question about carrier-sponsored insurance and perks for O/O's

Most of these situations expect you to be a lease operator, some might want you to be an Independent, but you'll be captive to any carrier that you are pulling for, you won't be jumping to another, that's not how it works with intermodal.

 

A lot of leases contain language making it somewhat exclusive to the carrier saying you can work elsewhere if you remove your door signs, turn in the fuel card, etc. generally making it hard to do effectively, short term, if at all. It is in there to keep from running afoul of the regulations regarding truck leases.

Here in NJ, port operations have the port driver's Sea Link card tied to the carrier's SCAC so if a guy gypsies in for another carrier the box he pulls is still tied to the original carriers insurance and could be very problematic.

The more the carriers offers, the more likely they are profiting on it some were, some how. After 45 years I can say this with certainty.

Matlack [under Rollins Corp.] was self insured under a Rollins owned insurance firm and had an 100 million excess liability umbrella and charged owner operators, monthly, for their inclusion under this umbrella of coverage.

I had one guy, sold his truck and now a company driver, benefit so my 15 or more owner operators paid around $1,200.00 a year and only one collected.

He was involved when hot resin took too long to get to the guy operating the drum nozzle so he closed it to go ask if there was a problem, just as the hot resin finally reached the end of the relatively cold hoses and blew the nozzle and fitting off spraying the receiver.

It was in Florida so the guy wasn't smothered in protective stuff so the suit was over his burns. Our guy had his lawyer, plane to FL, hotel and meals all covered by the umbrella policy.

Now out of the other 80 terminals I'm sure there were other owner operators who were covered under something traumatic but the overall number compared to those who paid into the umbrella [it wasn't an option!] would still be small.

Read everything before you sign anything...Good Luck