Lightning like Steve McQueen? I'm in the fast lane when the light turns green And I built tough Find nothing but grit? Cause I made rugged blood sweat and spit yeah, like a horse I fly for a bumpy ride? I like to play hard but I work harder And I weather the storm? Cause I'm built stronger.
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Fray Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. I got a very special guest for you guys here today. He's damn near my resident insurance expert at this point because he comes on and. And breaks it down for us on what a lot of this stuff actually is, what your policy actually covers and things like that. And today we're going to talk about what are some of those factors that go in to what, you know, some of your prices might be, premiums, everything like that.
We're going to bring up kind of a really, like a one one level approach to this because I think a lot of people this time of year are looking into starting a business. Maybe they're looking at their policy and they're like, what does this stuff actually mean? Why does this keep going up? So with that being said, I got my good man, my good friend Cam back on the show. Price camp, Cameron P. Hey, let's go.
You know, if you pronounce my last name right, then we're getting somewhere, dude.
We. We. It is, because I always want to say it. I mean, how many people call it Peckia or Petia or anything like that?
You already know and it's. And honestly, I don't even know if that's how they say. It's just that's what my family told me when I was a kid. That's how we say it. It's like, all right, cool, dude.
It's just been a running joke on you this whole Time, right?
Yeah, no doubt. Well, my dad's like, were Italian. Like, I'm French, German, Italian, a mix. My mom's side's Native American. I don't know, dude. It's all over the place. So he's like, were probably Mafia. They dropped a couple letters when we came here to, you know, for whatever reason, and here we are. It's like, all right, cool.
Oh, that's funny. That is funny. So, dude, what's. What's going on, man? Like, I think, you know, when were chatting yesterday and, you know, every time we talk, it's always like, we. We got to bring more value into the industry, right? Like, a better understanding about what a lot of this stuff is. And, you know, whether you're going into business for the first time as a owner, operator, or maybe you have a fleet right now, and you're, like, looking at what factors go into actually establishing what my premium is, right? Because that. That's one of those things that, you know, I learn every single time we talk. And then, you know, other people that I know on the insurance space, like, all the factors that go into it, and I think it.
It will help paint a better picture and also, like, kind of like lower the sticker shock on. Wait, why is my premium this expensive? Just to do this right? And I think that's what drives some of those. I got to go get more quotes from other people. I don't trust you and everything else.
Yeah, for sure. And I think rightfully so a little bit, because if you're looking at it on your pnl, I mean, it ranks up there in your top probably three to five spots with fuel, payroll, you know, maybe equipment, depending on how it's set up. And then insurance is, like, right up in the mix. And so, you know, obviously, people do fuel cards. They're looking at doing this payroll. There's not much you can do. You know, what are you going to do? And then insurance, and then really from, I don't know, a young age, it's like, oh, if I drive good, my insurance is going to go down.
Or it starts to be a commodity a little bit more as the marketing comes out of, you know, say, 15% or some of these things or what I see a bunch like you just mentioned is, oh, you just got to call around and keep calling until you get the price you want. And it's like, maybe not. And there is something to be said about maybe finding the right person or people or group organization for your needs that understands what you do. And understands trucking and has the access to the markets. You know, there's differences insurance, right? Not all insurance is created equal, but like for specifically premium and some things that drive it, the main things are going to be what everybody thinks. You know, have I had claims? What are my claims? I don't have any claims. Why'd my insurance go up?
It's kind of common, right? The other things, drivers, right? How many miles does a company go? What commodities do they haul? Some of the things within that though, where we will spend time and this is for your new person to fleets and kind of everybody in between is going to be safety, right? And CSA scores and out of service and FMCSA stuff. And that starts, I feel like, with drivers. So that comes with from the very beginning, you know, what is my minimum standard of driver that I'm looking at now? Obviously sometimes the market dictates a little bit better, a little bit less than better. But as an organization, it's like, okay, do I have a handbook? Do I have an onboarding? Do I do a drive test? Do I document the drive test?
Do I have some sort of HR or some sort of incentives for safety? Do, do I have ongoing education and training? Do I have, you know, what is the culture surrounding that in that company? What do you want it to be if you don't have drivers and you're trying to build that for us, if you do have that force, how do you make sure they're not all just cowboys going rogue? This I tend to see happen a little bit more maybe with the 1099 guys when you know they're owner operators within your organization, they can pick up something happens, they can leave, go to another company, your DOT and your company names on the side of that. It's stuck with you now for what, two years, three years, if not longer. And I know brokers or customers or people look at that thing, right?
So your CSA scores start going, getting out of hand. Next thing you know, you go from a green light on the cab to just going through scales to a optional to a mandatory inspect. And now all of a sudden, oh, I wasn't keeping up on maintenance. Now I'm getting dinged. Every time I go through a scale now, it snowballs, compounds. And to get out of that, it takes a long time because it's time weighted with fmcsa. So it all starts like at the beginning and then proactive maintenance, you know, investment in technology and stuff are things to help reduce that. But I think that to me is one of the things where people don't understand, oh, my equipment, my drivers, the investment in tech and the training and the culture of safety impact my insurance.
Like, they're thinking more, hey, how many miles, what cargo have I had? Claims, here's my equipment, here's the age of equipment in value. That's what most people think. And that is true, that's part of it. It absolutely is a big part of it. But there's just so much more that goes into it.
I was. So let's go into a very. I would, I'd say this is a very natural progression. You know, driver was company driver for a long time, is now out on their own. They're an owner op, they got their own stuff, they're booking their own freight now they're like, hey, my customer is saying, if we have more drivers, I can get more business. So they're like, I need to add another driver onto my trucking company, right? Like, I want to have somebody lease on maybe an owner, operator, maybe they're going out and buying a new truck, insert any of those, you know, possible things.
But let's talk about that natural progression here, because I feel like that is where a lot of guys, you know, get out, they're behind the wheel, this opportunity falls in their lap and they're like, hey, I need to look at hiring other drivers. What are some proactive steps they can take that day? Like, like, what are they not thinking of that? If I came to you and said, hey, Cam, I got this truck, you know, we move 48 foot flatbeds, I got a customer who's like, gonna give me some more freight, I just need to hire a driver. What would I, like, how do I better set myself up to like, add that additional driver onto my policy?
Yeah, for sure. And a lot of that too is like when we're identifying or a new customer or potential customer comes to us, is talking about the plan, right? Like, hey, what is your next year if it's new? Like, let's say they just came out of the. Their, their truck, but out of the other company, open their own dot, got going, got some relationships with customers and whatever is having that conversation about, do you plan on staying maybe an owner off for a year or two to kind of figure it out, or do you intend to come in and say, hey, I've got two buddies and I plan on doing this. I want to get to five trucks in the first year. It's.
It's a vastly different path on what I'm going to take them through on an insurance standpoint because not all insurance companies will let you do that. Some are going to say, hey, you can come in, we'll accept you as a brand new dot. We have faith because you're experienced and stuff like that. But we want you to be an owner OP for a year just so you know what you're doing. Year two, hire somebody great. We're good with that. Years three and four and beyond, it's like all right now maybe once a quarter or as you are comfortable or depending on what your experience. Now not all new companies are treated the same. Some have massive experience running multiple drivers and their background backs it up.
So there is a little bit of a story and It's my job to kind of have those conversations. So. But what I would say is like first and foremost, most and too many people get into business without a business plan or without thinking of the next five moves and without even understanding what and why they're doing it. They're just a good operator with an opportunity to go make perceived more money. But now all of a sudden comes this responsibility and the stress and the liabilities and the standards, the DOT audits, all the things that, you know, as a truck driver you really didn't deal with a lot of that. Now all of a sudden you wear all the hats and it's like oh, okay, you know, you get a DOT audit like you have to do it. You can't just like ignore them.
There's a bunch of things that go into that. So I think business plan first and foremost figuring out either getting a third party company. There's so many resources online now. There's so many vendors that you can talk to. You might have buddies that own a bigger company that maybe have done it and they're set up pretty well. Is start looking at what your minimum standards are going to be, what your absolute, you know, no's are going to be like. Whether it's, you know, drug and alcohol violations or X amount of violations on the record, make sure you have some sort of minimum standard of this age, this many years of experience in open deck. You know, this is my ideal person. You kind of work from there. But all of this stuff matters as you grow and get bigger.
When you get to with let's just say a target painted on your back and in the eye of the public. Every truck company has a target on them. They're a rolling atm. So you go to court, you don't have any of these standards. Let's say you're not even at FMCSA minimum standards. Yeah, you're an easy target now, FMCSA minimum standards, guys, those aren't what you want to be at. That's not what you strive to be like at. You want to be well above those. And it starts at that moment. And so then when you go through your hiring process, your pre drive, your ongoing safety, your, you know, whatever you want to do, you create your business how you want.
But if it's buttoned up and it's all documented and your meetings are documented and your drivers are engaged and all this stuff happens, it looks way better come down to the time you end up in court when these attorneys are trying to get a 10 million, 20 million, whatever million dollar verdict out of you that they're going to try to take your company is what's happening there.
No, I mean, that's, it's extremely sound advice, right? Like, and you know, as somebody who's built up, I've been in that situation a few times. Not like legal in court, but like when I went out, like, the fact that I had a cpa, a bookkeeper and clean books in my businesses, for example, opened up like it was almost like a weight off of any lender's shoulders because they're like, oh, you guys are taking this seriously, right? Because, you know, to talk, you know, because to me, it's like when you start something, you're so desperate just to make money, you know, because the reality is when you're out there on your own, you put a lot of capital out there, you know, a lot is relative, right? And with buying a truck and trailer, it's a lot different than some people, right?
You might be a quarter of a million dollars in the whole before you even start your truck, right? So you're like, I gotta get revenue. And I understand personally the desperation that feel of like, I just need money, I just need something. Cam, you get it as well. You started out with nothing and you've fought your way to get that consistent revenue, right? But it's like a lot of what I feel like you're saying here is these are some of those things that you should be paying attention to from day one on. What direction are you looking to head, right? And it's a lot easier for me to sit here now coming up on five years in and saying, yeah, Cam, you're exactly right. Like, I probably should have done a lot of that differently when I first started.
And that's literally, you guys, the entire purpose of this show is to save these years for you to start thinking about this stuff day one. Because it's like it's going to come a time, right? Like it's natural, right? You put enough calls out there, you do a good enough job, people are going to start rewarding you with more work. And then this conversation is inevitable. Unless you are that driver who's like, already decided, listen, it's just me, like my old man, right? He reached a point where he's like, I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to do my own thing. I don't want to mess with anybody. And unless you know that and you. This is just one of those things where it's like, this is going to save you six months to a year because you're very right.
The most important point there is when you get to court or when you get that lawsuit, guess what? They don't give a that you had a bad day. They don't care that you overlooked. They're actually hoping you did so they can bury you. That's their job. That's what they're hired to do. So you need to protect your business. That's what it is, right? And that's another natural progression that you go through because it's like you're so excited about this new venture that eventually it hits you like, shit. This is an actual operating entity. This is a business. I need to treat it as such.
Yeah, well, like, you know, you're a businessman at that point, right? And treat it like you're a business, you know, and start thinking like you're a business. So like all of my conversations are business owner to business owner. And it's putting that conversation into play because I understand how to run a business. I've ran a business for a very long time. I've been commissioned only I know. And I grew up in and around trucking, so I understand trucking and running a trucking company very well. There's a bunch of things that like we bring to the table resource wise and conversation wise at every level. Like we can deal with the owner op and like we can go from one to five. That's a big jump. You're still wearing every hat. Now you got five times the amount of responsibility.
You go from five to 10, you're arguably still wearing almost every hat. And that's a huge difference in what that company looks like. That's 100% different looking. And that's why it's so maybe risky to the insurance company. So when you start doing that, you hear these stories of my insurance got canceled. I can't find insurance. My rates went from, you know, 8,000 a year, 10,000 a year, 12,000 a year to 25,000 a year. I mean, there's significant jumps. And the thing you cannot really predict, you can somewhat with a good partnership, with a good agent agency, someone in your corner, they can help you kind of minimize some of those rate increases that come because it's inevitable, especially in this last couple years.
Dude, there's so many things that are not in that list of like, hey, what drives my premium that affect it from economy, from the investment market, from world, the wars around the world, from disasters around the world. Insurance companies actually buy insurance. It's called reinsurance. And so they have to get rate set and go secure rate. And those things all affect that ability to purchase it at an, a competitive rate. At the end of the day, if the market's good, the investment market's good, it's pretty calm. There's not a ton of things eating, the reinsurance or the ability for them to secure money at a decent rate. The rates tend to be pretty stable. And that's all you really can and want to ask for as a company is like, I have to budget. I've got a P L.
I know I'm not always going to make the best percentages. Everything else is kind of beating me down from fuel to taxes to all these different things. Rate maybe isn't paying as well as it could or should. And, and it never is right for a truck company. It's never paying as much as it needs to be. But if you can diversify with power. Only brokers have great relationships with brokers like yourself, maybe have some good direct customers. You're diversified. Well, you can manage that and like extend that, like take the scope or your lens. I, I would say back it out a little bit more than like the current moment because at any given moment you're kind of on the up down. It's cyclical.
But if you can back it out a year, 12, 18 months and look at the big picture and maybe five moves ahead on where am I going as an organization, a company? What's my strategies here? Am I trying to go secure new customers? Am I diversified to like, not just say, okay, the spot market or this market's paying me X, but between everything I've got going and I'm trying to get going, here's what I'm actually going to make. Oh, by the way, am I putting money away for a rainy day? Am I being proactive on this? Am I planning for having those conversations ahead of time with my insurance person? Of, hey, the rates are going up. We are seeing this occur. Here's what you already are at. Obviously it'd be nice.
You had no claims, maybe potentially or maybe you didn't have any claims, but all of a sudden your safety scores went and deteriorated. A bunch of things. Your driver quality deteriorated. That all affects the insurance. So instead of paying that rate you were used to, you get the renewal rate and it's sticker shock. All of a sudden it's like, well, why did that happen? It's like it's the stuff we talked about. I told you about this. Like we've talked about this. But like it's more than just talk. Like you actually have to have systems, processes, plans in place. You got to be intentional about focusing on certain things. There are things that are more important than others. And then the other stuff is kind of a luxury of, you know, I guess elevating in the game.
Like you said, going from year one to year six to oh, I get it. Oh, shoot, you know, knock on wood. Hopefully everyone gets lucky and gets past that without any catastrophic event or having to shut down their company or sell off equipment. That's like worst case scenario, right? When we talk about going to court and that kind of stuff, I'm just talking about getting good paying loads and things where those safety, SMS scores and all that stuff actually matter because everybody's looking at it, attorneys look at it, we look at it, insurance looks at it, lenders look at it, your customers look at it, Everybody has access to this stuff. And so if they're going to go try to negotiate freight and let's say as a carrier, I don't have the right insurance in place.
Maybe it's not a great insurance company, financially rated or whatever the reason may be. Maybe my safety scores are bad. If I'm trying to negotiate with you, Chris, and you have another company over here, stellar history, great performance. Insurance is all airtight, they're good to go. It's like that affects, it has to affect what decisions people make, right? Whether it's good paying, bad paying, they go with you, they don't go with you. There's so many things that come into that I don't think the truckers sometimes think about. They just think, oh, I'm going to just go get on the spot market, bid it and it's fine. And If I need it, I'll deal with it later. Right?
Yeah. I think, you know, again, this is just coming from somebody who doesn't actually own trucks, but I think that, you know, a lot of the people that I talk to who do own trucks, a lot of the individuals that I've interviewed on this show, they've implemented what Cam is saying here, right? Like talking about systems, processes, procedures. There's verifiable, like, hey, we're a legit company, right? Like, and these are it seems, you know, again, it's like, ultimately this show is always going to be based on, you know, it. It's. It's providing that information because you might not know this, right? You might be like most individuals when you start a business where, again, you're just so excited to be out there on your own, you don't think about a lot of things.
And, you know, that's like they say, like, you can have a plan, but, like, you also. I think I. If I could go back to day one about any of this stuff, Cam, I would take a few more days to do a little bit more research on some steps that I should take. Right? And again, there's a lot of value in not knowing what to do and then like, getting kind of punched in the face a little bit and then not making the same mistake twice. Right? Like, there's a lot of value in that. But I also think people need to understand that the overarching view of what they're getting themselves into when you sign up and, you know, buy a truck or start a freight brokerage or whatever, that looks like, you need to know these things, right?
Like, you need to take a little bit more than, you know, surface level research on this stuff before you sign on the dotted line. Because it's you. It's on you at that point. And, you know, I think one of the most freeing moments most business owners will have is when they realize nobody's coming to do this for them and they have to figure it out if they want to succeed long term, you know, because it's like we're. We're just fine, you know, we're going through some stretches here of time. And there's. The information is at a premium right now of, like, free information, right? Like, there's no paywall to find out anything that Cam's talking about here about how to, like, get your insurance in line, how to get your policy and a better understanding of all of that.
All of this is free, right? You don't have to pay for a course. Cam sits in that seat literally every single day and talks to different trucking companies of all sizes every single day in and day out about this stuff. He knows insurance more than probably most people that you're going to find out there. And he sits here and gives all of this information away for you guys, right? So it's like you can just take this and start looking at your operation. All right, where am I currently today? How is that different than what Cam's talking about here and now? How do I fix that stuff? Right? And it's, and it's not easy, okay? But it's doable. And if you want whatever direction you want to take your company, like, these are the necessary steps.
If you're sick and tired of your premium going through the roof, or you maybe if you're sick and tired of not getting the best financing terms from your lenders and stuff like that, you got to internally look and be like, is it my processes? What are they telling me that I'm not actually hearing or understanding? And then start making those changes.
Yeah, well, it's not all bad too. Like, there's a lot of excitement and there's a ton of excitement about it too, because like, at the end of the day, insurance is one of those necessary evils, right? I've got to have it. It's required. I can't work without it. But when something happens, at no point, let's say you have a, you hit a four wheeler, let's say one of your drivers does. Like, the first thing that's most important is the people. Like, is everybody okay? And if not, or even if it's a minor accident, at no point where you're like, man, I glad, I'm glad I found that cheap insurance and you know, I saved all that money. The first thought you have is, am I covered? Yeah, Cam, do I have this coverage? Well, thankfully for me, I have a really.
Try to have really good conversations, make sure we uncover all the needs and their contracts and their requirements and what they actually haul, because we actually understand what they do on a day to day basis. Hopefully there's coverage for that. Like there should be. Right? We've talked about it. What happens though? And this is kind of the biggest misconception. And I, and I, I'm not saying don't settle or don't like, do your research, but when you call around and just get a bunch of insurance quotes, it does not help you. In fact, it can hurt you because think of like you're applying for. It's not the same, but I'm just using as a reference, like applying for a loan for equipment or you're whatever. And all of a sudden you're pulling credit, pulling credit, pulling credit. It doesn't look good to the lender, right?
They're like, what are you doing? Like, and it reduces your score in that circumstance. Kind of similar with insurance. Like, it's still a relationship business on. On some level, right? If I have a relationship with you as a client, I have a good understanding of your operations. I know where you want to go. I know your history. I know that we had a little bit of trouble here, but we've cleaned it up and we've been proactive on fixing these things and implementing process and procedure to make sure and ensure this doesn't happen again and all that kind of stuff. It is much easier for me to go to my relationships with, like, the top insurance companies and say, hey, yes, we've had a little bit of trouble. Here's what we've done. We've worked with this client for years.
Here's what we've seen from them, here's our history, here's the track record, here's everything we've got. And all of a sudden, the underwriter on something they wouldn't even maybe want to do in the first place or be competitive on now is like, you know what? I like that. Okay, let's do this. Perfect. There is still some of that on the back end. Not all companies do that. Now think I and I don't want to drop insurance company names, but we'll just go with some of the ones that people know off top of their heads where it's like, oh, I called this agent, called this agent, same company, they're the same. They're all selling you the same product, but they're different prices. The consumer.
And what I see in these groups is like, well, people get different rates and people get a better deal or what? No, they don't. People have access to X amount of companies. The. The ones that kind of dabble in it. All of them have the same companies. The insurance companies, the ones that are a little bit more elevated have a little bit more insurance companies. The one that's the ones that specialize and only do that, have the best and all the other insurance companies, because we want to make sure we have options for your journey, where we've got to place you, what makes sense for you. We have all those. Our job Is to take that off your plate, take that time, give it back to you and us go to the market, us give you the advice.
Us work with the roadmap and create that map for you to say, hey, you want to go from 5 trucks to 15 trucks? Here's what we got to do. Here's how we got to do it. We're going to plan for this. Yes, it might be a little bit more quote, unquote expensive in the early stage, but here's why and here's how this is going to work. And, you know, the underwriters on the back end start getting multiple submissions. The information doesn't match. Equipment's different values. Maybe the drivers or routes are different. Cargo doesn't sync up because the other agent. Agent didn't ask you any questions. They just said, oh, send me equipment and drivers. We'll get you a quote. How confident are you if that's all that you got? Or they asked you and you gave them in a claim?
Are you like, man, they really understand me? They know what I'm doing. Like, I don't know. People do that and people get a good rate and then I guess they just, you know, maybe get lucky, never have claims or whatever. But in my world, it's like, yeah, I wouldn't do that. Be zero chance. I want to make sure that my person knows my company, and if they don't ask me what I'm doing, or maybe even worse, they actually don't understand what I'm doing. They think a flatbed is like a legit, like, single axle flatbed truck, not a tractor trailer. I've seen this, and that's kind of why I kind of chuckle on that. It's like, holy, dude. Like, they don't even know what they're doing, dude.
I 100 agree. As we're wrapping up here, Cam, what is, like, in your opinion, based on our conversation today, what are three steps that people need can, like, look at or follow to have a better understanding about why their premium might be where it is?
I think the three steps or things to pay attention to is all the best practice stuff that you would look at. If you take a snapshot of your company and where you want to go because you're always trying to improve, you look at what that company you're running would look like in five years, look at that and say, okay, that's the top three things. We're a culture focus and surrounded by safety. Safety's first. The driver culture is amazing. Our retention and driver retention is great. People want to come work for us and safety. Like everything in our let. Let's say our equipment's top of the line, it's shiny, it's all new. Or it could be old, but like, well maintained. I'm not saying new is better, but like, you take pride of ownership, right?
And all of your stuff, those things will equate to better insurance. I mean, it seems kind of weird like thinking about it in that terms, but also like the 1/4 I would throw in, there is an investment into your technology and the, you know, forward facing, I know driver facing cameras are a hot button topic, but there is a lot of things about, you know, front facing, forward, rear facing, 360 cameras, technology that can actually be used for training and bonuses and all kinds of things that can make you better. But more importantly, it makes drivers more aware, makes them more proactive, safer, makes you more defendable in court. There's a bunch of benefits for that. That'd be a fourth I'd throw in there.
Dude, I love it. Cam, as always, I. It's action packed every time you're on the show. And you know, again, everything that am just said, you guys, is free, all right? And you know, I like having him on the show because even if you're not his customer and if you had questions for him, he's. He's down to help you guys out, all right? Because like, he just wants to help people have a better understanding about what they're getting themselves into because of, you know, the alternative to this, you guys. And that's where it's like, you're liable and like, maybe your agent's not going to be there at that moment, right? So it's like you got to look into this stuff. You got to protect your business. As always, Cam, thank you so much for joining me.
DME if you can't find him, he's all over LinkedIn, you guys. But if you can't find him and you want to talk to him, just DM me. I will gladly put you guys in contact. That is going to be it for today, you guys. I got a guest coming on tomorrow as well. As always, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys, if you're feeling really, really ambitious, rank it on itunes and Spotify as well. That helps to get out there to other people because if you saw value, chances are your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon. See, man. Dude, I.