I am looking into getting back behind the wheel after a long break. Possibly going lease or owner operator after a year or two as a company driver. I have found a spreadsheet which calculates cost per mile and profits at different freight rates. I am looking for ballpark numbers for insurance; Bobtail, Trailer, Liability, Cargo, Collision and Comprehensive, also looking for some numbers to plug in for trailer rentals. I know there are variables so not looking exact numbers just something to give me an idea of what I would be up against.
new company will have higher insurance i paid a bit over 10k per year my first year reports iv heard recently on here it seems to be harder to get and 15-25k per year this cost will decrease over time as long as you keep a good run loss as far as trailer rentals no idea, i know one guy that rents out dump trailers he gets i think somewhere around 23-2500 per month for them probably doesn't help you much i think its hard to get trailer rentals as a new company. no idea what you are looking to haul if your thinking dry van i see old ones for sale all the time for 5k and under i have though of buying one as a storage trailer never actually went to look at one so don't know if they are actually road worthy or not but seen ones that look good and newer under 10k.
Without knowing what type of hauling you want to do I will give you a generic answer based on assumptions. If want to run a regional line haul that crosses State lines and you will average 100,000 miles per year pulling a flat or a dry van your break even cost for maintenance and payments for the complete unit plus insurance and authorities will be about 75 cents per mile NOT INCLUDING FUEL. These numbers will work in perpetuity regardless of whether you buy used equipment for less and have higher maintenance costs or new and have higher payments. The difference with used can be a lower break even number if you do all or most of your own maintenance and repairs, this reduces downtime and expenses with the used truck but you need to know your stuff to get that benefit. Figure a five mile per gallon average to get your fuel costs, today that would be about 50 cents per mile. That brings your break even number to $1.25 per mile, add to that at least 15 cents per mile ABOVE whatever the top driving jobs are paying right now to get to your final per mile number that you will need to earn to be a worthwhile venture. You will find that most company leases are not even close to this number, they entice pullers by providing the trailer and "handling all the authorities" but those things are the cheapest part of the trucking industry. You will pay far less for insurance as an individual with a good driving record than a fleet gets with a whole stable of high risk trucking school graduates. Trailers are a dime a dozen and cost less than 20 dollars a year to register. A guy with one truck and a calculator can be careful enough to buy the right amount of fuel in each State he drives in to satisfy IFTA requirements and make the filing of those reports a snap. You can decide up front what you want to haul and buy the correct amount of cargo insurance, in a fleet they make EVERYBODY carry the maximum amount of their most valuable haul even if they never put that load on 90 percent of their pullers. A USDOT number can be acquired online with a few mouse clicks and membership in a random drug test program is less than 150 dollars per year for an Owner Operator. What all this means is that you can do well with your own truck if you don't let the details scare you into leasing on with one carrier, the rates work if you are completely independent and just choose your own hauls off of load boards with published rates. This means truly "running a business" as opposed to just being a very low payed driver without benefits (which is what most leases amount to) but the trade off for the additional responsibilities makes all the difference in the world
You might want to call OOIDA and talk to their insurance agents. They might have the answers to your questions and can narrow down what you intend to do. Otherwise, contact a local commercial insurance agent and put the question to him.
