Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/305892
May 2014 | Overdrive | 21 Logbook PROVEN TECHNOLOGY DEPENDABLE POWER EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY | | 6 O SERIES DETROIT - lower operating cost - better fuel mileage - less down time $133,000 starting at: www.FitzgeraldGliderKits.com Untitled-50 1 3/21/14 8:35 AM Text INFO to 205-289-3555 or visit www.ovdinfo.com Agency says insurance minimum inadequate noted. The American Trucking Associations, however, said it "has yet to see any evi- dence that increased insurance minimums will lead to improved highway safety, and until we can review the underlying Volpe study FMCSA's report relies on, that continues to be the case." — James Jaillet (Continued on Page 76) The current $750,000 minimum liability insurance required to be held by carriers is too low, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which plans to create a rule upping that minimum. In an agency report to Congress last month, FMCSA concluded that the $750,000 liability limit set in 1985 does not "adequately cover catastrophic crashes" today, due chiefly to inflation and increased medical costs. Factoring inflation, the minimum required insurance would be $1.62 million, and if the number had kept up with medical costs, carriers would be required to have $3.18 million in liability insurance, FMCSA said. The agency's study was re- quired by the MAP-21 highway funding act. The Owner-Operator Inde- pendent Drivers Association said the insurance increase "would be a death nail" for small truck- ing businesses. Todd Spencer, executive vice president, said only 1 percent of all crashes where trucks are involved exceed $750,000 in damages. "Trial lawyers will see windfall payouts in the increases, and big trucking companies, who already use special exceptions in the law to avoid buying insurance on the open market, see an opportunity to drive up business costs and do away with their small-business competitors," Spencer said. The Trucking Alliance, an association of fleets, said in a report last March that between 2005 and 2011, 42 percent of the settlements paid by its carrier members exceeded $750,000. The per-occurrence average determines true risk, the Alliance Logbook_0514.indd 21 4/30/14 3:05 PM