News Alert: Reports of Lockout on the West Coast This Week, Over the Weekend

By: Andrew Johnson, Account Executive, Roanoke Insurance Group Inc. The freight brokerage industry as we know it today began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, around the time of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. Before the passage of this landmark legislation, regulations were too restrictive to make freight brokerage a viable business segment. Fast-forward to today, and most motor carriers, by authority definition, also have a freight brokerage operation. Freight brokerages fulfill a vital service in modern logistics, connecting independent carriers with loads and drastically reducing empty repositioning moves. Brokering also allows carriers to complement their assets by […]

The National Safety Council(NSC) recognizes April as Distracted Driving Awareness Month. They estimate that 4,000 deaths and 276,000 injuries occur yearly because of distracted driving crashes. Additionally, distracted driving is the cause of 10% of all fatal crashes. Many of these accidents and fatalities are attributed to drivers engaging in risky behavior such as cell phone use, eating/drinking, reaching for an object, talking to a passenger or reading GPS. Not wearing seatbelts, speeding and use of alcohol makes these accidents much worse. Additionally, the stressors of the pandemic, returning to work, and other social factors have increased the cognitive distraction […]

The liability landscape for the trade and transportation industry is changing. Carrier accidents on the road resulting in bodily injury and property damage (BIPD) claims pose a real financial threat to brokers, forwarders, and other transportation intermediaries. Recently, the number of large trucks involved in fatal crashes and the resulting jury awards have skyrocketed. Inconsistent application of the law has put the burden of these “nuclear verdicts” on not just the carriers but also the broker-forwarders responsible for hiring the carriers. This volatile litigation landscape and the rise in “nuclear verdicts” has specifically led to two related issues for transportation […]