Why Are Rates Still Low? + Answering Trucking Insurance Questions | Ep 11

Caroline: [00:00:00] Welcome to This Week in Trucking, the podcast that tells you what you need to know about the trucking market for the week in 30 minutes or less. This week we’re talking about diesel prices and freight market trends as always. Also, why people might be taking cheap freight, and a glimmer of hope that people might be feeling a little bit better about the spot market.

Caroline: Plus, we’ll be answering your questions at the end, so definitely stick around. Hey, Gurvir. How’s it going? How’s your week?

Gurvir: Week’s been going good. It was Memorial Day. So got to chill with fam and just enjoy the weekend. How about you? What did you do? Did you do anything fun?

Caroline: I did a lot of fun things with my family and yeah, Memorial Day, an important holiday to remember those who have fallen for the U. S. And for our sake. Really important. And I know a lot of people in this industry have served in the military. So always important to mention and celebrate them as well.

Gurvir: Totally, yeah a lot of people in the industry people who drive, [00:01:00] today have come from, serving in the army and the military. Yeah thanks to all of them.

Caroline: Yeah. All right. Let’s get into it to see if the diesel market is a little bit more favorable this week. And I have good news. Again, I feel like I’ve been able to give most of the good news the last couple of weeks. Gurvir?

Gurvir: Yeah,

Caroline: I usually do the fuel update. You’re with the freight market update. I seem to have been getting the better deal the last couple of weeks.

Gurvir: But I do have some good news for freight as well. But yeah, let’s get into the diesel market. Let’s see.

Caroline: let’s look at it. So [this week’s] national average. was 3. 758. So this is coming from the EIA and this is down from last week and the week before. So it’s down three cents from last week. It’s also down almost 10 cents from last year. So this is good news comparatively to last week. And last year we’re doing better in the diesel market.

Caroline: Prices are down and that means a better, stronger bottom line for owner [00:02:00] operators and small fleet managers, really any fleet manager.

Gurvir: Yeah, totally. I think another decrease and this is really good. I think the best thing that we can see right now is diesel prices continue to come down and freight rates going up, right? That’s the trend that we want to see. That’s the trend that’s gonna, really help the spot market and the carriers. And the more those two things drive away from each other, the better the profitability gets for [carriers]. So that’s a really good trend that we’re seeing actually that has been continuing to come down. Now we need to hope that it sticks around here, right? For longer periods of time and hopefully we don’t see more fluctuations and rapid increases in diesel price.

Gurvir: But this is really good.

Caroline: definitely. By region, you’re seeing that diesel prices are down across all regions with the exception of the Central Atlantic region. So sorry about that, Gurvir. Your region’s not down.

Gurvir: My dad went to Kansas today and he’s said, “I’m using the Bobtail fleet card. I found the cheapest fuel.” That he’s fueling for today at 2.80 I think.

Caroline: Wow.

Gurvir: In Missouri, by the way. Missouri is one of the cheapest states, but yeah, that’s really good.

Gurvir: I haven’t seen 280s in a while. So I was excited.

Caroline: That’s a good sign. You’ll always find the cheapest fuel, or almost always, in the Gulf Coast, but the Midwest isn’t too far behind them. And of course, the most expensive fuel is out West, particularly in California, mainly because of the isolation of the market there and taxes. The fuel tax in California is really high.

Caroline: The biggest drop in diesel prices over the last week came out of the Midwest that dropped more than five cents per gallon. So if you’re in the Midwest or trucking around there, then life is feeling pretty good for you right now.

Gurvir: Awesome. Awesome. Hopefully we continue to hover around these numbers and hopefully we don’t see a big increase. So this is really good news.

Caroline: Awesome. So what’s happening in the freight market this week? Gurvir, what can you tell us?

Gurvir: Yeah. I’m a little bit happier. I don’t know if you can tell. Since January, all the months we’re just looking down every month, up until April, we went all the way down to 1. 99 per [00:04:00] mile.

Caroline: so painful.

Gurvir: If you’re looking at the national spot rates the DAT trend lines, and we’ll look at a couple of data points here today. We’ve gone to $2.02 per mile for dry man, right? So we went from 1.99 in April to $2.02. That’s a 3-cent increase. Again, February was 2.06. March was 2.01. April was 1.99. We’re up to 2.02. I think we’re gonna continue to see this go up a little bit, right? And I think truckers and overall people can feel that there’s a little bit more tightness after Memorial Day. It’s continuing. It’s obviously come down a little bit, after the road check and Memorial Day. rates are going up slowly. So flatbed has gone up another cent. So we’re at 2.53. Reefer has gone up almost 9 cents. So we jumped from April 2.33 to 2.42 in May. So that’s what DAT trend lines [tell] us. If we look at the Freightwaves indexes, so let’s look at the national truckload index that is up. So we went from 2 and 25 cents last week to 2 and [00:05:00] 29 cents.

Gurvir: So there’s a 4-cent increase there. And these are all good things. So the rates are going up; national truckload index with Freightwaves is showing us an increase of about 4 cents. DAT showing us an increase of 9 cents on refer almost 3 cents on dry van and 1 cent on flatbed things have started to turn a little bit.

Gurvir: Let’s see how June turns out. I think we’re going to, we’re going to continue to see small increases in June as well.

Caroline: Yeah, let’s hope. I can see here too that very likely the big increase in rates for reefer probably due to produce market. What do you think is happening there?

Gurvir: The whole reefer thing is all because of [produce], right? And that also falls over into other categories as well. Overall, by the way, rejection rate is another thing that I like to track, which is literally, I think there’s one thing that you want to look at and tell if the market has turned. It’s the rejection rate by Freightwaves. They charge some money for that, so we don’t have the live data available. But every time, there’s a snapshot that comes out or somebody talks about it, in February and March and like even April, we [00:06:00] fell actually to about 3 percent rejection rate, three and a half. Now we’re coming back to five. I think we’re touching almost five, hoping that we cross five again. The target is to be between seven to ten, right? If we had seven this year, we know that hey, that’s a drastic change from last year essentially the last two years rate is also going the right way.

Gurvir: So all the indicators are going the right way. I’m not saying this is the inflection point, but things are looking better.

Caroline: Yeah, let’s hope that this continues to go up, this trend continues. This comes to the story that I wanted to share today. This is an article on Overdrive that was written by an expert in the trucking industry, long term trucking industry veteran, and has a lot of experience, talking to owner-operators and small fleet managers and helping them with their businesses.

Caroline: And he was attempting to answer the age-old question of who is accepting this cheap freight, right? We hear that all the time; lots of complaints all over of people working on the spot market of why would you accept [00:07:00] such a low rate? And really his take on it is that we’re all just trying to guess and see what’s going to happen.

Caroline: And there’s not a lot of clear guidance to small business owners on what to do. So you hear a lot of numbers and statistics come out about the freight market, but that those insights aren’t always really actionable, which I really appreciate because that’s the point of doing this podcast is to give people actionable advice.

Caroline: So give them that information, but also really things that they can actually do right now to improve their businesses or try to think about their businesses differently. And so he was saying that a lot of the owner-operators that he talks to just don’t have the time or the headspace or the emotional bandwidth to do the math on every single load.

Caroline: They just know that they need cash. They need either a specific rate per mile, and they’re really married to that number, or they think [00:08:00] they need to make a specific amount per day or per week. And that people get really carried away by their biases and emotions when they’re booking freight and booking loads.

Caroline: Like someone will come on to a load board and see a high rate or something that looks like a really high rate and get really excited about that and work really hard to get that when it might actually not be the best load because maybe it’s a really heavy load that’s going to cost you a lot in fuel or it’s a load that’s a bunch of, two or three LTL loads put together and they’re not actually compensating you for all the deadhead miles between those pickups. So this was a really great article. We’ll link it in the description. But what do you think of, Gurvir, when you hear people say, who’s hauling all this cheap freight?

Why are people hauling these terrible loads?

Gurvir: Yeah, really good question I think the whole industry does, you can’t control market rates, right? Like it’s not like the market only affects certain people and certain people are saying there’s a certain demographic that is saying yes to cheaper freight. At the end of the day, [00:09:00] you have costs, there’s operational costs that every business [has]. And at some times, I’ve run, [I] ran a trucking company before. At some point, if the market isn’t paying that rate, it’s not. I have to take what the market is paying. At least I’m covering my costs. Those times also come in the business that you’re not really making much profit. So my sentiment from running the trucking business.

Gurvir: And hey, look at that end of the day, you can’t really control the market. What’s the alternative, right? To saying are you going to go find a contract the same day with a shipper, right? Or are you going to sit at home and just continue to pay insurance bills and truck notes. So I think it’s the whole industry. I also, I have heard some thoughts and arguments on that hey, it’s a lot of the private fleet that is hauling a lot of the backhaul and they don’t really care about price because, they’re delivering their own goods and private fleets care about one-way runs and that’s a cost-effective way to transport their own goods and backhaul is just added revenue.

Gurvir: They’re going to come back empty anyways, right? Why not just pick up whatever you can and pay your costs, right? Private fleets are not in the business of making money off of trucking, right? They [00:10:00] can run that operation at break even. And why do they run it at breakeven? Because that’s low-cost transportation for them rather than giving it to J.B. Hunt or Schneider or someone else who’s gonna ask, for 20, 30 percent more, right? So they don’t really care about profitability and they can probably pick up the loads much cheaper than the owner-operator. But even private fleets, sure, they’re picking up some of the freight and they’re not really asking for, good rates, but I think it’s the whole industry.

Gurvir: That’s the market, right? Market does what it’s going to do. 

Caroline: And I heard another take on this from Trucking Made Successful, which is one of my favorite YouTube channels for trucking. And she was saying, the host of that channel was saying, a lot of people think that it’s just these clueless people who have no idea what they’re doing and that’s why the rates are down.

Maybe that’s true in isolated cases, but the bigger picture, the bigger story is so much more complicated than that.

Gurvir: yeah, it is. And this is my evaluation. There’s no live sensor on the industry that tells you, “Hey, we got too many trucks. Let’s stop buying the trucks.” There’s always [00:11:00] a lag. COVID hit, a huge drop in demand, right? People were sitting at home. There was no freight. Right after, there’s a huge boom of freight. And guess what? We don’t have enough trucks. So naturally, everybody’s going to add trucks. But now everybody’s adding trucks. And nobody knows when to stop because there’s no report or indexes anywhere that says, “Hey, look, we’re right at equilibrium right now, anything beyond this point, it’s going to be scary because we’re going to add too much capacity.”

So the natural way for the industry to find out that we’ve added too much capacity is the market.

You have to add too much capacity to find out. Oh, look, there’s too much capacity and everybody’s able to cover loads quicker. And that’s how you find out. 

I don’t think it’s more so people don’t know what they’re doing day to day. You’re basically taking the market rates. Now, if I ask the other question, who do you think is hauling the best freight right now? I would say it’s people that have maintained really good broker relationships. So maybe the opposite question is a good question to ask. Who do you think in this market is getting the best rate per mile? It’s the people that have, serviced the lanes really [00:12:00] well, have maintained good broker relationships. I see those that people are getting good rates and those are the people.

But if you’re operating in the spot market, the rate you’re getting is the right, there’s no single person. Not even 5 percent of the trucking owner operator population can control rates, right? 

[You have] to see Exodus of carriers for the rates to come up. It’s a simple supply demand question.

Caroline: Yeah, definitely. I remember talking to a carrier, an owner operator who has decades of experience in the industry at the mid-America truck show a couple of months ago. And, he was saying, yeah the market’s tough, I have such a good record that I’m hauling jet engines, jet engine parts across the country.

There aren’t a lot of carriers. They won’t give those loads to just anybody.

Gurvir: Yeah. It’s such a special, great. And if you continue to do a good job on time, we’re going to use good communication. You have a good record, fluctuations don’t matter much. But if you’re going to stick to the spot market, then obviously you’re going to have to go through the swings of the spot market as well.

Caroline: [00:13:00] Another thing that I liked about this article, by the way, the article was by Gary Bux. I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. Really interesting that he said to that people are afraid to share the information about the loads and the rates that they’re getting for fear of judgment or ridicule that if people were to share more of that information that we might all be better off.

This is the pay transparency idea that you’re seeing come out in terms of salaries across different industries. Companies and governments are moving to try and make pay more transparent. If the same thing happened in trucking, what would that effect have on the industry? So that was an interesting thing too.

We see a lot of time, if we ask carriers what they’re making, what rate per mile, or how much they’re making per week, we have to take that with a grain of salt because people might be inflating their numbers because they don’t want to admit it and especially they don’t want to admit it publicly.

Gurvir: [00:14:00] Let’s do it next week. Actually, maybe next episode. I want to bring my dad’s numbers, right?

Caroline: All right.

Gurvir: [I’ll get] his numbers. Yeah. 

Caroline: Do it.

Gurvir: You are right. It could be a daunting thing, too

Numbers to someone, people might judge you based on, Hey, why did you buy such an expensive truck?

Why is your insurance so expensive? You’re making this much, really? And I’m making more than you. There’s also this thing on, go to social media. 

I used to say this and I used to meet drivers. They would always lie about it. It’s also a thing in the trucking industry.

People over inflate their rates. I don’t know if they want you to feel some type of way and they would just exaggerate their rates. 

And people always make up rates. So also be cautious of what you’re trusting on social media. Sometimes these things are just to make you feel a certain type of way.

And if brokers know what the rate should be, I’ll be very honest. If you go to spot right and that person is only paying 500 bucks. That is the rate. Otherwise, he would pay you more if he couldn’t cover it. I’m telling you if he thought he didn’t have options, he would pay

That is the rate. Sure, at some points, obviously some brokers really do, try to book cheap freight, but that is the rate. At the end of the day, if he [00:15:00] doesn’t have options, the rates will start going up. And that’s what we need in the trucking.

Caroline: At the same time, they’re always going to try and low ball you. There’s always some value in pushing back on the rate, trying to get a little bit higher, even if it’s just a little 50, 100, 200 more. It’s worth at least, asking and proposing it. And a lot of times it is worth it to let a load go.

Gurvir: 100%.

Caroline: It would have been really great, but it’s sometimes it’s worth waiting even a day and not making anything that day, if it’s going to save you some wear and tear on your truck.

Gurvir: Yeah, no, totally. I know, I think definitely more transparency does help. I think one thing that revealing numbers can do is, it can just help everybody align on what the numbers should be, right? So that [you know if] your numbers [are] higher or lower, right? I think that could be a good thing.

Caroline: All right. Gurvir brings out his family trucking business numbers. We’re going to see real numbers next week. I’m excited about that.

Gurvir: He doesn’t work too much. So we’ll do one week’s he went to Kansas and back. So we’ll look at one week’s see what he did. And if you do continue [00:16:00] to do that for, four weeks, can estimate the full month, but he’s such an on-and-off guy, so I really don’t want to do a whole month.

Cause the numbers are gonna look very different. Yeah.

Caroline: All right. So what is the story that you’re bringing to us this week, Gurvir?

Gurvir: Compared to what I’ve said about the freight market. I think there’s optimism. There was a survey done that shows signs of optimism amongst truckers for the spot market. And throughout the last few months, the outlook is becoming more and more positive.

So about 48 percent of respondents reported yet that there was a weaker demand last quarter. 60 percent expect volumes to rise in the next three to six months. So that’s about a 20 percentage points higher than the previous survey, right? That, hey, people are feeling more and more positive, just like us, right?

I feel much more positive today looking at the numbers that, hey, look, things are getting better. We’re seeing small increases in the rate per mile. We’ve seen rejection rate go up. We’ve seen a lot of the capacity exit the industry, right? There’s so many trucks on sale on Facebook marketplaces and dealerships. People are buying trucks for such a low price that those are all good signs in [00:17:00] terms of, hey, look, we’ve seen enough capacity think we’re reaching an equilibrium. And 39 percent of the respondents expect spot rates to rise in the next 3 to 6 months. So that’s my expectation as well. Hopefully I’m right.

But but people are feeling that, hey, let’s do six months towards the end of this year. We’re going to see much better spot market. And most of the industry, I’m not saying everybody, but a lot of people are feeling positive about this.

Caroline: Who does this survey?

Gurvir: I think this is Overdrive. 

Caroline: And how often do they do it? Do you know?

Gurvir: I’m not sure. I think they do it only when, or like these monumental, times

Caroline: right.

Gurvir: like, Hey, people are feeling down. And I think I like these things because it’s gives everybody a positive vibe, but then they were in the same industry.

Gurvir: We got to help each other and find support and hope but yeah, I think it’s a really good survey. I think I think it was about 250. Owner operators. I believe I could be wrong. Yeah. I think 225 actually. Yeah. Consisting of dry van flatbed, reefer, and specialized terrain.

Gurvir: And about 45% have just one truck. So yeah, mostly just single-owner operators that have the survey.

Caroline: It’s been a really tough couple of years for those folks, so it’s good to hear that people are feeling a little bit more optimistic about it.

Gurvir: Yeah. I think the data is showing that. So hopefully this helps.

Caroline: All right, let’s get to some questions that we’ve gotten on social media. The first one comes from a company asking, can anyone recommend any good commercial auto insurance companies other than Progressive? So what are your thoughts on how people should be shopping for commercial auto liability insurance.

Gurvir: Auto liability is probably the most expensive piece. If you ever look at an insurance quote, you got physical, you got cargo, you got liability. Liability is if you hit somebody, who’s going to pay that million dollar claim, right? You see these billboards on top of highways that, hey, if you’re hit by a semi, call me. All these attorneys and lawyers, and hence, you see how these costs are being inflated over time, right? So that’s probably the most expensive piece, and that’s the [00:19:00] insurance that costs you the most. I would say, if you, first of all you should not just go with Progressive. You always have to shop around, like we discussed this in the podcast a few weeks ago.

Progressive will always be very expensive.

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah.

Gurvir: Hartford, Travelers. There’s Century Insurance. There’s Liberty Mutual. There [are] a couple of other ones as well. I’m looking them up because there’s two or three. Canal Insurance is actually a really good one. But it takes time to get into some of those programs, the initial start, I think the good way to approach this question is [to] talk to your agent and ask him which markets does he have access to and which markets does he not, right? And the markets that he does not have access to, find a different agent that can also submit a quote to those markets.

At the end of the day, these agents have access. And if you have one or two agents that you should have access to the complete market, they should submit your insurance application to all companies. And just who comes back, right? At what price? At the end of the day, your agent should just not be, [00:20:00] again, this is a very bad agent, you should not work with him if the only thing he’s doing is just going to Progressive…

Caroline: because you can do that on your own.

Gurvir: You can do that. You can just go to progressive.com and get a quote on your own. And the quote might be even better, right? Than the agent, but you need to find an agent that can actually access all of these markets, right?

Canal, Sentry. Sentry is actually really hard to get into. Canal is a little bit harder, but National Indemnity used to be another company for new carriers. Even though Progressive does a lot of business for new carriers, I would say you gotta have quotes from as many companies as possible. And make sure you talk to your agents about that. Hey, which markets do you have access to? Which insurance companies are you submitting my application to? Who are we expecting quotes from? And ask him who has rejected a quote after you receive a quote. Ask him, hey, said, no, I’m not going to ensure this policy and who actually gave a quote so that the next agent you talk to, exactly which companies he should not be going to. It should be new markets.

Caroline: And if you’re thinking about buying one of these trucks that you see on Facebook Marketplace, you’re just looking at the industry and thinking about getting into it for [00:21:00] yourself, definitely shop around for insurance before you get into [your] truck just to see what the rates, what insurance rates you might get.

If you’re a newer carrier, that insurance is going to be a lot more expensive. If you’ve taken a break from the market and you’ve suspended your authority and you’re coming back into it, you’re very likely going to be treated as a new carrier. So those insurance rates are going to go up and go up significantly.

So definitely shop around before you buy. Don’t just get caught in with whatever agent the dealership is working with or whatever you’ve, heard just one other company from a friend, do the research, shop around. Totally.

Independent drivers association. They also do insurance. It’s a risk retention group. I’m not going to get into the specifics of what is a risk retention group versus [insurance].

But that’s a good one. And there’s also a risk retention group in New Jersey. Again, there’s local companies as well. They’re called Truck [00:22:00] Insurance and ITIC. National Independent Truckers Insurance Company. They’re also a risk retention group. So if you’re a single owner operator, by the way, accept single owner operators. Two trucks max or three trucks max. But those are also good options to get a quote.

Caroline: Also look into your local trucking association. So I know by state, a lot of times there will be trucking associations that you might be able to join, be a part of, they might have other benefits. Also other resource groups, like I know the African American Women in Trucking Association, their group is really good.

They have a lot of resources for folks. So look up to see if there are any groups that you might be able to get a group discount or some other benefit through. Cool.

All right. Here’s an age old question for you today, Gurvir, Volvo or Freightliner Cascadia and why?

Gurvir: Oh, wow. This depends on personal preference. Volvo’s ride is really smooth. I think Volvo’s are also doing a really amazing job with fuel miles per gallon, comfort, safety, technology. Volvo, I think weight is much, much better. [00:23:00] The cons are maintenance costs, right? Like it can be hard to find

And the dealer network is a little bit smaller, right? Cascadia is by Freightliner. First of all, pros are you’re going to parts maintenance, like really quickly. It’s just much easier trucks to work on. They’re also really good with fuel efficiency.

But the main, I would say parts availability and maintenance. It’s not the best ride quality, right? Compared to the Volvo’s. But guess what? You’re going to find the parts and maintenance costs are going to be lower. So I think that’s really the key difference. Always for five, driving comfort and safety and smooth ride. Three letters are for fuel efficiency. And

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for joining me again, Gurvir, and I’ll see you next week.

Gurvir: See you next week as well. Hopefully we can bring more good news. And this is a big year hoping for a big inflection point in, in, in truck. But if you’re out there, you’re struggling, if you’re hanging in there just want to let you know, we’re seeing some positive signs and hopefully this continues and you can make some money, and that’s the most important thing for you and your family.

Caroline: And send us your questions. If you have questions about your business, send it to us, [00:24:00] hello@bobtail.com. You can also just put them in the comments but send us your questions. We’d love to answer them.

Gurvir: Yeah, totally. Have a great week.