Considering New Authority

Reefer is probably the only way to go out west. But i have no experience with it. Ive only done open deck . You can make some money working north and south, but as soon as you wanna go east, you just gotta eat the cost and roll to the midwest .. for what its worth theres plenty of reefer work down here, ive contemplated jumping into that market myself but dont have the finances to do it at this point and have no desire to deal with that side of the industry

 

My opinion: if a company doesn’t run mostly for direct customers it doesn’t make sense to lease on to them.

 

So you have your own trailer then? A lot of details missing.

 

I had my own authority for 6 yrs before I gave it up. I let it go in 2024. I stopped it because of increasing insurance. I'm in RI. I had a not at fault accident in December of 21. Pre accident insurance was 9500 a year. Post renewal went to 18k next year was 16k the then 2024 quote of 24k and I was done between the market and insurance I felt extorted. I Got a quote this year again for the hell of it 34k all of the quotes I own the truck and trailer no tickets nothing on my driving record. That 1 accident ruined it. It was 1.3 million pickup came through atop sign in front of me on icy road and got t-boned had kids in back and 3 years later finally settled. Sorry for the long post just saying how life goes. RtS had a decent fuel card network

 

Fuel is biggest cost. My insurance is only about 7k a year. First year of new authority back then was maybe like 12k? I run older paid for equipment and do all my own fixing.

 

Something else I forgot to mention a ton of brokers won't work with you now days if you are under 18 months old. You will miss out on loads now and then because of that.

 

As someone who spent 12 years owning trucks and not having authority I never got hung up on the percentage the carrier held. I was more concerned with what my truck was making at the end of the day as well as what the carrier was providing for their percentage. Some of the best money I made was running food grade pneumatic and that was giving up 27% to the carrier. Also made good money hauling cattle while giving up 20%. A lot of the hazmat carriers around here that take O/O’s are at 30%.

Guess it depends on what you want to do but there’s a lot out there where you can make more giving up a higher percentage. I wouldn’t just focus on the 12% because if they’re running load board stuff the remaining 88% won’t be all that great in this market.