Insurance

to answer your first question, no your insurance rate doesn't go down just because you've now had your authority for a year.

to your second question, depends on when you got them. CSA scores are weighted with the heaviest being ones that are within 12 months, so if you just got them at time of renewal then yes, it could possible affect you. load secrument is a big issue in flatbed

 

no. do not have a bunch of brokers all attempting to quote
there aren't a ton of insurance companies in the market place
most trucking insurance specialists all have the same carriers
you need to ask potential agents who they have, do they have direct contracts (this saves middle man $), ask them who they want to quote, reserve the market by signing an agent of record. ONE AGENT PER ONE COMPANY QUOTE
you are just going to be doing more work than you need having multiple agents, you will have agents block out markets on others, and you will wonder why nobody followed up with you

 

did you compare the policies or just looked at the price?
theres a lot of risk retentions groups that have sprung up recently in the past few years because of the hard market. you need to do a lot of homework on what risk you are retaining by joining that type of insurance group...if your rate was just magically dropped in half over night....THAT'S A HUGE RED FLAG

what are you missing on your cargo?
was it rated correctly? (insurance companies will drop you mid-term if not)
are you with a risk retention group?

remember this:
THE TRUE COST OF INSURANCE IS THE PREMIUM PAID + UNPAID CLAIMS

 

you're premium for physical damage was just lower than a newer model

rest assured having a 1986 is not giving you a more favorable rate on your liability premium

 

not all are credit rated. if it's a one unit some do. big P does on mostly everything
if it's more than one, it's unit/mileage usually

 

$4,200 a year for cargo?
that sounds a bit high but depends on what you're specifically hauling
you may want to bid the physical damage and cargo out. find an agent with direct access to companies, this way you can cut out 5-10% of "middle man" cost
that's usually the best place to start. the auto liability is probably with the cheapest company available to you right now...the physical damage and the cargo is the most overlooked

 

It would be bad if we couldn't ever change brokers. He needs to find a good broker that deals with all/most of the insurance companies. I went from a rate of $20K to $7k over night just because the $20K broker dealt with Markell and couldn't deal with Old Dominion.

 

nice
Markell? wow

 

Just curious are you a trucker or an insurance agent?

 

was a trucker. carrier owner. freight broker. now insurnace

 

Can you do anything with new authorities?