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

I ran under someone else’s numbers and paid $387 a month for 1,000,000 liability and 100,000 cargo.

If you’re under 10,000 you don’t have to have mc or dot numbers legally, but I’m not sure if you can get insurance without it.

 

You still need a DOT & MC# you still need motor carrier insurance and hauling that "Goldwing" in the van makes you a "auto carrier" which is almost the most expensive insurance aside from straight up hazmat.

Trust me I looked into doing the exact same thing. I'm not saying you can't make it work, but insurance in the $500/mth range is gonna be very hard..

I did the van life thing for 4 years before I started trucking, it's what brought me to trucking because I like being on the road. I would love to just grab a sprinter van and do small loads like this and yes I do think it's possible if you aren't paying lots of bills back home..If you want to do the van thing and travel around I very much think you can do it on the money you'd make..but the more items you haul means the more holds ups dealing with people that might make other shipments late.. so lots of extra hassles the more individual loads you haul.

"However".. Insurance is the killer.. Both FL & MA have very expensive insurance rates. IMO to make this work you "need" to be able to do motorcycles which means you have to be classified as a auto carrier. Again I 100% looked at this option so I'm giving you info of what I found out.

The insurance rate for a sprinter van vs a hot shot truck is not going to be much difference for the cargo/liability the extra stuff like full coverage if you have a loan ect depends on the vehicle.. Personally I'd love to go this route but for myself I wanted to make more money so I'm going hotshot instead..

The key things you need to look at are insurance rates and if you look through my posts you can find one where I posted the average cost for new motor carrier insurance is by state.. Mississippi was the cheapest by far...

One thing is DO NOT tell the insurance company you are expediting.. I'm not 100% sure but I think they put you in a higher risk bracket when doing that. Tell them you will just be moving household goods, general freight & maybe motorcycles.. (if you can do it with out the motorcycles the insurance will be at minimum $2-3k cheaper per year)

Anyway that's the info I sorted out when looking at this myself.. I still believe I could make money doing exactly what you are looking to do as I looked at it too, but there is better money on the hotshot side.. Granted I still haven't bought my trailer yet I've only just now applied for my DOT/MC#'s.. and haven't bought a trailer yet... so I still have time to change my mind and I do have a van that would work... LOL

Anyway Yes I personally think you can do it if you are in a situation like myself which is very low costs for your monthly expenses (I have zero debt) I do think there is money stacking small kitty cat loads and dressers because there is a lot of that on Uship and not many guys taking the like $200-$500 loads cross country..

Edit... now one thing I didn't look at, is if there is any special permits needed to haul dogs, cats ect.. There is of course a DOT thing called "livestock" but I don't think dogs & cats fall under that category but I'm honestly not sure..

Oh and for the record, my insurance quote out of FL for a hotshot auto carrier/new MC# but with a 2 years experience is around $12k and mine's a very cheap rate in FL for a new MC#. Meaning that's double the cost of your $500/mth. Cheapest I personally got was about $750/mth in MO but then I'd need to pay $2,5k/year for a office out there that qualifies for their requirements.

If I dropped the auto carrier part my guess is in FL my rate would probably drop around $2k/year..but that's just a guess.. (my quote was for a F350/38ft trailer under 26001lbs

 

No, no, no..... Tell them everything!
Withholding information from your insurance carrier could give them grounds to deny a claim.

 

That's not what I was saying on the expediting.. Expediting is a whole different line of work its getting shipments to a location with priority and speed.

That's not what he's looking to do. He will essentially be a LTL common carrier in a van.. Stacking multiple small shipments in a van vs rushing single shipments.

Its 2 totally different fields and I'm pretty sure the expediters pay a higher rate due to the nature of their work so you dont want to get lumped in with them just because he's using a van.

He's looking to say take someone's dog to Charlotte from Orlando for $300 but also take a random desk for $150 to the same area and maybe someone's bicycle for $80. ect..ect..

There is a market for that stuff because most people dont want to deal with general public on these types of shipments.. so you can stack several small loads and come up with pretty good per mile pay but it takes more time to set up, but it's not expediting it's more just transportation of shipments in a van.

If you look on uship there are tons of little loads like this that no one bids on, but the bigger question is how hard will it be to constantly stack them when dealing with "normal" people not actual shippers.

 

Gotch ya..... thanks for the clarification.

 

Nope. $387 a month and I told them I was expediting.

 

Yeah

Yeah, but that's for a existing company not a new MC#.. New numbers are where you pay through the nose.

 

Ahh. Gotcha.