Under 10,000 lb and Uship- how to be legal

Freight is hard to find in your area. The suggestion I gave last week was the best option for starting out IMHO But without that you get the numbers ( MC....DOT. ). Run up down east coast for dollar a mile off the load board. Do this for about a year. Paying $ 12,000 year in insurance put 100,000 miles on truck and one breakdown and you are out of business. That is a plan with a flaw in it. Best bet is to try to locate freight before investing in truck,trailer and insurance.

 

Insurance will vary depending on what you are driving and hauling. Call your insurance broker and ask them for a quote. You may need more insurance depending on your customers but they should be able to easily give you a ball park estimate.

I am however doubtful that when you run the numbers on this business plan it will be very favorable to retirement. Vehicles in general are black holes for money so if you aren’t using that van all the time your expenses and depreciation could easily exceed your profit.

Drive safely

 

Rent or lease a truck?
Insure contents separately?

 

You need a dot and MC number and commercial insurance. How much a month no one can say except a broker. You might also need cargo insurance. You don't need to keep a log on a vehicle under 10,000 lbs.
You will be "forced" to run way past the 11 hour logged workday in order to make ends meet or make just a little extra. Unless you are buying a quality commercially built van, you will be buying a new one very often with no value left in the old one.

 

Sure would be great if someone just answered the question and said how much they paid for insurance. I've found, over the years, that people in similar situations pay pretty close to the same amount. (Yes, if you have a $100K tractor it will be different than my tiny little van.) But I'm a bit suspicious all of this doom and gloom is from people who don't like competition.

 

Its not doom and gloom. Insurance varies greatly depending what you are hauling, how far you are hauling and where you are based out from.
You want prices? I pay 27k a year for my insurance, someone with the same setup from a different state is paying half of what I pay. That isn't "pretty close to the same amount".
The only person who can actually tell you what it would cost would be an insurance broker. Call a broker, tell him all the information he needs and you get a quote. It costs you nothing to do so and you wouldn't have to face all this "doom and gloom" you are dealing with here.