In an industry like trucking, which is famous for its tenuous profit margins, cutting expenses has become a fine art. Nearly every dollar that can be shaved from the cost column shows up in the net earnings column, so commercial motor carriers large and small have found inventive ways of taking expenses that at one time looked “fixed” — and unfixing them.
Nowhere has trucking focused more of its cost-cutting attention of late than in the area of insurance.
he need for an estimated 80,000 new recruits over the next several years, along with job-switching among the existing 1 million or so drivers at trucking companies, have meant thousands of seasoned as well as inexperienced drivers getting behind the wheels of big rigs for carriers.
With high-value cargo hurtling down interstate roads in $100,000 tractor-trailers driven by men and women far from the watchful eye of supervisors, insurance providers are seeking higher premiums to cover mounting risks from vehicle crashes and cargo theft, and thus are charging motor carriers high premiums for their coverage.
For the full story, see the May 29 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
