Superior Carriers & Henniff

My question is if we are one company why is there different health plans for superior and heniff... and of course heniff has the better one.

 

Don't know how you guys do dispatch but the way Schneider was when I was there was this.

Preplan comes in
Accept it
Start following your workflow
Finish load
Await next preplan

Rinse and repeat.

Main issue was every customer had an ID with one address. So you weren't told what gate to go to for those plants with multiple entrances. Either have to call the customer and hope you get in touch with someone or drive to the main gate and get turned around and told where to go.

Other issue was they knew certain customers required paperwork that you needed but they wouldn't tell you this and you would end up having to park and have it faxed in to progress, many times missing your appointment and have to have it rescheduled.

 

I actually prefer workflow than a miriad of macros. Seems more straight forward and I don't have to remember all different macros for different situations.
Full disclosure : I don't work for either company.

 

As far as dis patch goes, from what I’ve seen so far, the amount of down time Heniff drivers have while in the system compared to Superior is night and day. Getting to a terminal and sitting 2 or 3 days waiting for a load just doesn’t seem to happen (at least not with anywhere near the same frequency). It may be beneficial if you call your terminal before you get empty, especially on a Friday. With a new way of doing things and sometimes a couple dozen drivers to look after, I can see how you could easily forget about one guy in the fray. I doubt it’s intentional.

I don’t think the dispatch integration is completely done yet, so I would assume things will improve once it is and everyone is on board. I’m sure everything is confusing when you’ve got one guy from terminal a being dispatched on one system and another from terminal b on another. FWIW this change to the new dispatch system was already planned at Superior before the buyout, so that was probably going to happen regardless.

As to the insurance being different between the two companies, it was my understanding everything is the same, can you provide some examples? My insurance ended up being about $6 more, and the coverage is less. I went with the HSA plan, short and long term disability added life insurance, and am putting $10 a week in the HSA. Talking with friends who work for other trucking companies though, it sounds like we’re still on the cheaper side, but we were definitely spoiled with Superior’s insurance costs.

 

Seems to me when I first started with superior back in 2003, I don’t remember doing all that sitting, if they didn’t have a load for you then they would give you an empty trailer and send you home. But over the last 7-8 years it seems that layover time increased and instead of giving you a clean trailer and sending you home, they would sit you and pay layover

Now, don’t get me wrong, if you’re going to sit me 3-4 days, then at least compensate me, but I would much rather get the empty trailer and go home. Plus, how much more would it cost to deadhead me home as oppose to paying me 200 hundred dollars per day and depending on the time of year, idleing the truck the entire time burning fuel

 

Right?

 

I believe we had 6 months worth of short term, but not long term. I may be mistaken though.

Out of curiosity I did call an insurance agent about purchasing disability through them, and he told me he didn’t even have to run the numbers, there was no way he could get me a better rate than what we got from the company. He said that’s typically the case, I guess purchasing disability on your own is pretty expensive.

 

Have you given Aflac a call to see what they would quote a policy?

 

I didn’t, I called the Allstate agent that I get my car insurance through and he referred me to someone who specializes in life and disability insurance. I’m actually not sure which companies he writes policies for, we didn’t even get that far.