Can anyone explain how to operate at 1.75 a mile and stay in business!?

ok, so you pay $1220/year (that's how my brain reads it...lol) which is almost 50% less than my progressive quote.

PM me your insurance company please

 

my insurance runs around 7k per year for a $30k truck 60k in trailers 1 mill auto lib 2 mill general lib i change my cargo coverage somewhat often from as low as 10k up to around 50k depending on what kind of loads im hauling. this is with my own authority.

 

@Ezrider_48501

Im learning everyday...lol

How exactly does this "changing cargo coverage somewhat often" work...? other than the obvious "I just call my agent..lol". I'm asking about the actual premium payment and moving numbers.

I had no idea you can keep changing cargo insurance a la carte

 

basically you just call your agent, your premium will change i don't change it every day but if i know ill be moving lower dollar value loads for a little while no reason to keep at the higher limit. might be a little harder to do on general spot market freight. but ill generally have an idea of the types of loads ill be moving for a short time into the future. i also wouldn't just carry the highest value load i might haul all the time. if your going to book a higher value load you can just bump it up. making insurance changes literally only takes a couple mins sometimes you can just buy additional coverage for just a single load as well.

 

It's only physical damage & bobtail insurance. I get it through the company I'm leased to.

 

I get it through the company I'm leased to. Plus you have twice as much vehicle coverage. Mine's only insured for $30k.

 

You jumped head first into something you know very little about. And if you are crying about the rates right now you are in for a rude awakening when january comes around.

 

Take the $.50 a mile you're paying yourself out of the equation, then reduce costs. Leasing onto a carrier, as others have said, will reduce a lot of your costs: insurance, fuel, permits, sometimes repairs and maintenance.

 

You have to learn the markets and focus on revenue per day.

$1700 for 850 loaded miles looks good until you realize you won't get loaded til 3pm and you won't be unloaded tomorrow in time to pick another load unless you run all night and take a 5 hour break. That load becomes $1700 for two days. And then you realize yeah $2/mi is okay but now you're in Dallas or Atlanta. You ain't getting $2/mi on a long load from there. And then you think okay, I'll just take $3/mi to FL or GA or gulf coast. Nope. Freight doesn't pay $3/mi to $1/mi areas unless someone is desperate. I was in central WI Friday and Knight tried to get me to take $2/mile to Tampa. Someone took it for $2.20. they'll get 90cpm out of there. The load board by default will try to average you $4500 on 3000 miles if you do it their way. It sucks. You have to wait it out and be smart. You have to know when you found your load for the day and make that decision quickly. It isn't easy. Even me I been out here 8 months and I still have a hard time knowing where I should be looking to go from certain areas. Bad areas are easy - just take the first halfway decent load to the best area You can get to. It's the shades of grey that are difficult to figure out.

As far as short runs, I have only ran for less than $750 twice. And those were in bad areas going to better areas.

You won't be able to get $900+ on a 300- mile load unless you're in a hot market after 1pm.
Most loads on the board don't have to ship that day. You might see in the morning 350 loads within 50 miles - and at 3pm there are still 200 and nothing is hot. It takes experience to know when something is hot.

Don't go into a bad area unless you get enough. Right now should not be hard to avg $2/mi on spot market if you take your time. This week I'm avg $2.63/loaded mile on 2920 loaded miles and 300 empty. But I'm delivering in a bad area.

It's hard to get a good rate if you don't know what a good rate is in the area you're in. In Nebraska I would not even hesitate to take 500 mile $650-700 load to Illinois. In Chicago, I wouldn't go to NE or even KC for less than $1600-1700. And those might not come, they might not be available. You might take 350 miles $1200 to Columbus. Fine. $1200 per day is decent. Columbus to Chicago pays $500-750. It sucks. You'd average $900/day. So in Ohio, take 500 miles to Iowa for $900. Or whatever. Just have to keep moving your chess pieces to maximize your time in good areas. But it gets complicated. Every area is a good area compared to an even worse area. And every area is a bad area compared to a better one.

I've been just going haphazard and living on the edge not staying in any specific lane long term. I can handle that okay because I've learned that way. But you should just try sticking to a lane and work it. Go to Chicago and wait for a good load to somewhere and then just go back. Don't worry about rate per mile. Worry about per day.


You just have to learn the markets. I study them all the time. But I never would have done that without the support of being leased onto someone. I don't have to worry about being paid, so having to wait for factoring doesn't affect me directly, the fuel, trailer, cargo and liability are taken out of my settlement, so I don't have those up front costs, all I have to do is post and drive.

My total insurance is about $17k for the year. $215/week out of my settlement for my boss' cargo and liability, and $457/mo for bobtail and physical damage that comes out of my bank account once a month. Being leased to an established carrier has those perks.

I would make less money if I were to get my own authority. Extra $15,000 for insurance, and the extra 12% I'd get from not being leased to anyone, I'd still have to pay ,2-3% for factoring plus I'd have to finance a trailer. Plus more headache and BS to deal with and having to spend time getting paid. And having to pay for fuel up front out of pocket.

You should really think about dumping your insurance and leasing on to someone else's authority like right now. The financial stability will be worth everything.

And then you'll have a lot of breathing room to do your learning and having pay come in every week. Stability is incredibly important.

Hope I helped. Please feel free to PM me with any questions. Sorry for the long post.

 

I would do that too. I am paying about 15k for mine and I hate it dearly, feeling ripped off. There are guys in my area who pay less than 10K for the same operation profile (dry van, non hazmat, 100k cargo etc. 5 - 10 year old truck etc.).