Werner vs Swift

Mike gets it!

They run for pennies and don't complain. How? I have no idea.

 

Obviously depends on the limits of liability they have purchased. I'd imagine they have at least $ 50MM in limits and more likely $ 100,000,000 given excess pricing.....So ultimately those kinds of judgments are typically paid by multiple insurance carriers.

 

Is Werner not self insured?

 

Typically "self insurance" is usually for a portion of the entire liability "package"......Say they cover the first $ 1MM of every loss, they they buy Excess Liability, or Umbrella coverage that bumps up their limits. They might have 5-8 carriers providing $ 49MM excess of their primary $ 1MM.....and the another 4-5 players offering $ 50MM excess of the $ 50MM......on and on depending on what asset base they are trying to protect.

Years ago I know Swift had the first $ 2,500,000 of any loss position....not sure where they or Werner actually is anymore, but they would NOT be self insured for the entire $ 40MM

 

I see, they have insurance for the stupid crazy settlement numbers, not the every day lawsuits.

 

Exactly......they will have a "risk management" director who runs the "retention", or self insurance portion. They will either have "in house" staff and counsel to handle their portion, or contract it out to TPAs (Third Party Administrators) who manage their retention for a fee.

The risk manager will do studies to determine frequency of loss and "average" payout. They will then use that to determine how much they want to retain and how much to put out to market, and what total limits they buy in the insurance marketplace.

Top level excess is usually pretty cheap......many public firms (owned by stockholders) will buy up to $ 1,000,000,000 in total limits.......think Apple, Disney, Ford, MGM (remember the Vegas shooting) etc......or more recently PG&E in Northern CA......they have $ 1billion in limits......and it's not enough

 

They don’t know any better.

 

Wrong.
England is in no way connected to swift.

Knight was a driver with swift before he started his own business.
And grew it into a very successful trucking company.
Jerry was looking for a successor that he could trust to run swift as a trucking company and not as a investor business, (ie: profits over everything) and offered it to knight.

 

They are connected u need to read the story on it , it is pretty fascinating.

 

Then you should have posted a link to it.