Don't Sign a Shipper or Broker Agreement Before Looking At This

Jared Flinn: You're listening to the Boat Floats podcast, your number one resource for everything. Bolt, freight trucking. Hey, guys. Jared Flynn with the Bulk Loads podcast. Got Larry Hurt in here with me. Larry Hurt : How's it going? Jared Flinn: Good. Good to bring you on. Larry Hurt : Yeah, it's good to be back on. The podcast is a fun one. Jared Flinn: Yeah, this was a super fun one. Before we get into that, which. This one is a really, really good podcast. We always do a truck feature I missed last week. I feel like I'm kind of rusty when you get this, but yeah, our good friend David Gleason, we're gonna feature him on this picture. Looks like this is inside somewhere where they're loading. But David, actually, he's been at our last two conferences. Awesome guy. Jared Flinn: He's from Utah. He's got Casey. I didn't know that. I don't know he was a Casey. Larry Hurt : I don't know. We got to ask him about that. Jared Flinn: Maybe he did grow up. I think he did grow up maybe in Kansas or somewhere here in the Midwest. Larry Hurt : Yeah. Jared Flinn: But yeah, currently resides in Utah. He's been on Bulk loads. He does insurance. I think he's a TMS subscriber as well. So just an all around good guy. So, yeah, thanks, David, for featuring this. We're excited to see you. Speaking of the Bulk Freight conference coming up here April 16th through the 18th. Jared Flinn: We'll probably talk a little bit more about that after this episode. But we are getting closer and closer. Tyler is really putting this thing together. I'm almost like. I'm getting like overwhelmed, nervous. But we have a speaker, Marcus Sheridan, which I had him on my podcast. I told you about that. Yeah. Jared Flinn: Actually I just saw a short clip today. Marcus put on social media. This guy is going to rock the house. Larry Hurt : Yeah, he's the real deal. Jared Flinn: Yeah. So we'll talk a little bit more at the end. But Bulk Freight conference dot com. Go there to get tickets. Make sure it is selling out fast. I think we're already 50%. Especially the rooms that we got slotted off. Make sure and get those booked ahead of time. Jared Flinn: But yeah, we're excited about that. We'll talk a little bit more at the end of the show. But today I bring on Steve Miller. He's the president with Reliant Transportation. I'm sure you've probably heard of Reliant. If not, they've probably one of the largest. I'm not saying they're not the largest, but one of the largest brokers in the space. I remember Steve from way back in my Bartlett days. Jared Flinn: He. He Actually, I think he's an actual farmland work there, maybe even continental before starting. But he was really one of the first bulk freight brokerages out in the space and man, he's been at it 42 years. Larry Hurt : Long time. Jared Flinn: Yeah. But I'll, I'll turn this over to you. He sent over an interesting question and it was really kind of on the cuff. I said, hey Steve, like why don't we talk about this on the show? Because I think this is a bigger, broader issue that would really benefit our community. Larry Hurt : Yeah, it was cool. You know, I appreciate Steve. We, we've kind of gone back and forth. I think what's fun Steve is, you know, he's really got a heart for the industry and I think that's where we really connect is, you know, anytime there's an insurance question or a bottleneck that he's seen in the marketplace, he'll shoot me an email or give me a call and be like, hey Larry, what are you telling your guys about this? Or what should we be relaying to the motor carriers? And so yeah, yesterday he just sent over that email and was like, hey, what are you guys seeing on contractual liability? Like what are our motor carriers just signing these shipper agreements even though there's really stringent contractual liability requirements in them. And it kind of just sparked the conversation. So it was cool to kind of hear from the brokera side what he sees not only from the shipper contract, but also how does he relay that information to the carriers that he's hiring to haul that freight for that shipper. So it's kind of that trickle down effect and where does that contractual liability kind of fall and who's responsible? And so it's a, it's, it's a fun topic. It's hard to understand. Larry Hurt : You got a lot of attorneys that are just throwing hurts thinking about it. You got the attorney that's sitting up there and you know, somewhere in some corporate office putting these in a shipper contract and so trying to dissect them. And you know, Steve's got a lot of experience so he goes deep. Jared Flinn: Yeah, well, we'll talk about it after the show. But number one rule, like we put it in the show notes or in the title of this, but like make sure be careful what you're signing because you can literally be signing the farm away by making that. I don't want to be scary when saying that, but we want to make sure that everyone is protecting themselves. So. But we'll talk about that afterwards. So cool. Well, with that said, here is our conversation with Steve Miller of Reliant Transportation. Steve, thanks for coming on the Bulk Loads podcast. Steve Miller: Well, it's a pleasure to be here, guys. Jared Flinn: I was gonna say after all these years, we finally get you on the show, so. Steve Miller: Well, you know, we had to find a subject that it was worth, you know, being on for, so. Jared Flinn: Yeah, well, I have Steve Miller with Reliant Transportation on, on the show, Larry with as well. But Steve, you brought up a really good point. You sent a message to Larry and copied me on. I thought this was really interesting because man, we can talk about freight rates and loads and all that, but man, when you really get on the nuts and bolts, you got to think about risk and risk management. But I'm going to have you start first, Steve, but talk about this message that you sent and, and I'm going to have Larry kind of chime in. Steve Miller: Yeah, you know, we've seen numerous customers in the last three or four months send over new shipper updated shipper contracts and a lot of them today are asking for contractual liability coverage in general liability and auto liability sections of their contracts. So I reach, I reached out to these guys and I've been working on this for a couple of days now and I've been, I've learned a lot, but I just reached out and go, hey, if the major shippers in the Midwest, I won't use any customer names. But as big as you guys are in the insurance industry and writing as many hopper carriers as you do, are you getting asked this question a lot? And that's what started our conversation. So, and it's just not only the contractual liability issue, it's lots of issues. We're seeing these contracts get a lot more shipper contracts getting a lot more one sided than they used to be. So it just behooves all of us to read them pretty carefully and understand what you're, what you're signing and what kind of risk that could potentially mean for you. So, and I guess I'll say real. Jared Flinn: Quick, I'm, I am one of those. I am guilty probably like most of our truckers of like getting like a three or four page contract and just like, hey, what do I need to sign? Because I, I mean, yeah, for me coming from the shipper side, it was so much of like, hey, we got a truck. We got to get this loaded. We got to get now get this sent over truck waiting times money, let's get this signed. But man, some of the stuff you got to read through before signing it because of the liability that's involved. I want to pause there, but you mentioned contract liability, Larry. What exactly is contract? Larry Hurt : Yeah, no, that's a great question. So contractual liability is insurance that is specifically addressing the risk that you enter into or agree into a contract. So most commonly, what we see for motor carriers is, you know, they're going to indemnify the shipper. In a lot of cases, they're going to sign that, they're going to hold the shipper harmless in a contract, they're going to write a waiver of subrogation into the contract. And like Steve said, you know, this comes from the the generally what we see is the shipper is pushing this down to the motor carrier. And what we know is a lot of times a truck may be hung up, may need a load out and, you know, maybe somebody that is in a pinch and they got a backhaul and they're going to sign this agreement, they're going to send it back, probably not going to consult your insurance agent. You're probably not going to read the full agreement. It's just going to be something that you need in a pinch and you sign. Larry Hurt : Now, if you're doing regular, you know, you know, contractual freight for a large shipper and you're into agreement, you probably got a better grasp on it. But I think, and Steve, I'd like your opinion on this, too. I think what we've seen and you mentioned this, is the shippers or some shippers have probably a team of attorneys saying, hey, let's figure out a way to transfer as much risk as possible. Right? And that's. Steve Miller: I think that's 100% correct. Just like you guys are having a convention in April that we're all looking forward to. I'm sure shippers do, too. And one of the topics, I'm sure it's been on those conventions the last couple of years is this is the time to push these issues down to your carrier level, if we can, and protect yourself a little bit more. And Jared, you've been in this business a long time. 25 years ago, everybody, if a shipper even had a contract, it was short. It was pretty clear. It was pretty clear. Steve Miller: And nobody tr. If nobody was trying to posture themselves to get out of being liable for something, if they were in fact liable. But today, with litigious nature and these nuclear verdicts we're seeing, everybody's trying to protect themselves. And there again, we're pushing it to the carrier, which a lot of times is probably the guy with the least, the smallest tool Chest to protect himself in these cases. Jared Flinn: Yeah, well, yeah, I can remember I could be wrong, but when I was at Bartlett, we didn't even have a contract. It was, you know, as soon as we had the cert showing liability and cargo coverage and we had our minimums on each, as long as that was in hand, we could legally hire that truck. That was, that was over 15, 16 years ago when I left there. But that's. That's the way it was. Steve Miller: And, you know, I can make an argument that under the Carmack regulations and the federal highway, that still could be the best way to go for a shipper. When we start drawing up contracts, they don't have transportation people doing it. And a lot, A lot of times they don't designate between a carrier and a broker. And a lot of times it's the same contract. When they have vendors come onto your property to weld or to lay concrete down or do mechanical issues, it's the same contract, one size fits all. And it just isn't specific enough or isn't done with a general lawyer, does it? Not a transportation guy. So it can really open up doors of making yourself liable where you wouldn't have been without a contract. So, hey, guys. Jared Flinn: Many of you all know, but we created a collection of children's books called Semi Sam. These books were spurred when my kids were little, my boys. We couldn't find books on trucking and on agriculture. So I got together and thought of this idea to create a fictional character called Semi Sam and really encompass the storylines behind agriculture. Since we've started, we've created four different books. We're about ready to release a fall book called Semi Sam and the Pumpkin Harvest. If you haven't yet, you can find these on Amazon. But also if you're a member of bulk loads or you have resources that you want these to go to, we love to gift them out to people. Jared Flinn: We send them to a lot of our clients that give them out in parades, at other different events, conferences. And we would love to do that just as a thank you from us. Reach out to us. You can contact [email protected] go to any of our social media or you can go to Amazon.com and find the Semi sand collection. We hope that you enjoy these for your kids and grandchildren. Thank you very much. God bless. Larry Hurt : Yeah, we saw that the other day. I had one of our clients reach out and was just like, hey, can you review this shipper contract for me? And so he sends it over and, you know, they wanted a three Million dollar excess policy to sit over the one million dollar of the primary auto. And he's like, you know, I just, you know, to go out and get three more million, that's a lot of money for a motor carrier. And he's like, you know, I can't afford to do that. But you know, these loads were also being brokered by a transportation broker that didn't carry 3 million dollar limits, but they wanted the motor carrier to carry it. Right. So you know that you got your freight broker that's carrying a million dollar contingent policy and then you want your motor carrier who's getting the freight from the broker to carry a $4 million policy. A lot of times it's not feasible and I think it's a case by case basis. Larry Hurt : But you know, you want to go to that shipper and say, hey, I don't know who wrote this, I don't know who wrote this agreement, but this is not feasible. And it's probably, you're probably having people sign it and that are not actually executing it. And so the reality is is when the litigation actually does occur, it's going to be null and void. That contract's not going to mean anything if it's not enforced. And so that's, there's always so much hair around it. And I think there's, you know, like you mentioned the Carmack agreement. Try to find some, some uniformity around governance and regulation. And what we've seen is, you know, you'll have one shipper do something and then the next one kind of follows suit and there it's all just a pushback. Larry Hurt : And so you kind of see these trends come and go. But I think like Steve said also the litigious nature that we're currently living in is, is how much can we push back to the carrier and how much risk can we transfer. And I think you're going to see more and more of that as nuclear verdicts and more litigation come down the pipeline as well. Jared Flinn: Steve, have you seen this firsthand? Like the, I guess the nuclear verdicts in the bulk side? Steve Miller: Well, I'd like to tell you I hope not, but we're in the middle of a lawsuit that's been going on for three and a half years. There were three fatalities. And you know, I hope that we get released from it. That's the hope. That's what our insurance company tells us. But you know, it's just a matter of time. You know, part of that's just the number game. There's, I don't know, 10 vans on the road for every bulk truck. Steve Miller: But it's going to hit somebody someplace sometime in the bulk sector, and then we'll. Then we'll go, oh, wait a minute. This does impact me, but it's not a matter of if, it's just when. Yeah. Jared Flinn: So just going back to this contractual liability. I know you kind of mentioned that, Larry, but I guess in layman's terms, does this puts just more liability back on the carrier versus just a regular cert that they're agreeing to haul for this company? Larry Hurt : Yeah. So the contractual liability, and Steve's done a lot of research on this too, but essentially what they're trying to do is they're trying to push the liability from the actual contract that you're selling signing. So like, for instance, on a motor carrier side, you may see a contract that they need to fulfill deadlines. So this shipment's got to be delivered and executed at this point of the. The day of every week at, you know, Wednesday at 3pm and theoretically, when that motor carrier is signing to execute that, if that is not followed through and there's some liability caused because of that, they could potentially be held liable for not actually agreeing and executing their contract. Their contract. Steve Miller: Okay. Yeah. So by asking for it, they're not only asking and for you to insure it, they're not only asking for the carrier to guarantee it, but they're trying to get the insurance money of the insurance carrier that they have to put their money behind that guarantee too. Jared Flinn: Yep. Steve Miller: And if it was just meeting deadlines and stuff, that'd be one thing. But it goes into the liability of who you're hiring and what that guy does. And that's where the big payoffs are in this or the big risk is. And that's why they're asking it for it. It's just another way to try to protect the shipper when something goes wrong, whether it's an accident or there's a problem with loading or dumping the load. Jared Flinn: You were saying, I mean, specifically this message. There's insurance companies that won't write this. Larry Hurt : Yeah, it's actually one of the biggest. Jared Flinn: Ones in probably in the grain market. Larry Hurt : Yeah. I mean, there's a, the, the contractual liability is going to be a problem with some insurance carriers. I, I think. And, and that's kind of what kind of alluded to this. This call or this conversation was. You know, Steve had reached out and said, hey, how many of your guys are dealing with this? And I was honest. I was like, honestly, we're not having any. Anybody deal with this. Larry Hurt : And it's probably because they don't know that they're even signing it in the first place. But if I was to get a contract back with, for one of our insureds and then I would go to one of our insurance carriers and say, hey guys, we need to fulfill this contract, they're going to say, well, absolutely not. This puts us in a really bad position. So if you want to sign and enter into this agreement, the shipper agreement, we are probably not the right insurance company for you. And so there's going to be some natural hesitation from an insurance carrier to allow somebody that they insure enter into that contract. And that's probably why we haven't seen it or had a lot of those conversations yet is because most people probably don't know that it's hidden in the shipper agreement somewhere. But it's going to be contentious with your insurance carrier. They're not going to like that. Steve Miller: Yeah, we, we've asked a couple of carriers for it on the shippers and they've all come back and go, whatever carrier they have for insurance, they won't write this. Jared Flinn: Yep. Steve Miller: So, so I guess to kind of. Jared Flinn: Sum it up, I mean, and once you talk a little bit, Steve, today, I mean, so pretty much most, most of these shipping companies all have contracts that have to be signed versus 10, 15 years ago. It was pretty obsolete. Steve Miller: Yeah, yeah, it's. We've. I can't. Other than a handful of them, we've got 1200 and some active customers. And I would say we have less than 10 that don't use a contract today. Jared Flinn: I don't want this to be a legal podcast, but again, for you, you all, as a brokerage, you, you can sign those agreements and then hire those carriers. But by you signing that agreement, whoever you hire falls under that, Correct? Steve Miller: It's correct. They have to have. And then that's where you really open as a broker, you really open yourself up to liability. And I will contend the shipper does, too. If the shipper says you have to meet these 10 criteria to haul for us, you have to have an enforcement policy or enforcement mechanism to make sure that you do. And if you don't, gee, sign the contract and I'm covered. If you don't do some sort of enforcement issue, if you have an accident, if you go to court, the first thing the plaintiff is going to do is go, okay, let's see your shipper's contract. Well, here it is. Steve Miller: Okay. It says you have to meet A, B, C, D, E, F and G, what do you do to verify that that's done? Because this carrier didn't meet those requirements. So what's your process? And if you say, oh, I don't really have a process, I just signed a contract, guess what? You've lost the case in the first five minutes of the court session, you're done. You illegally hired that carrier to go perform a function that he wasn't able to do and you've lost. That's why these are so important. Jared Flinn: Steve, you've been in this industry for, for even longer than I have not tried, my friend. Yeah, I wasn't trying to age, you. Steve Miller: Know, date you, but I'm proud of every, every gray hair and your day. That's been so. Jared Flinn: But you've, you've seen some incidences where some of these carriers didn't know what they were signing. I know you and if you don't mind and you can or don't have to share some examples and you talked about somebody lost, you know, 160 acres. Steve Miller: And yeah, you know it, you can't lose what you don't have. But if you've got assets, playing this risk management game becomes exceptionally important. You know, people can lose what they've worked their entire life to, to, to grow. And most of these, most of these carriers are family owned companies and you might expect to hand this off to your kids or son in law or something. If you don't manage it, somebody can come take it away from you. We've seen some stuff that have been pretty dramatic and, and just really sad because people didn't understand what they were saying when they did it or didn't have adequate insurance coverage. So you know, Larry and I have talked about what a responsibility it is to help these guys get proper coverage for what they're doing. Larry Hurt : Yeah, Steve, I think, you know, really, I, I really admire you and I appreciate the conversations that we kind of go back and forth with. Something that you brought up a while back too was, you know, just the, something really specific in the progressive cargo form talking about the wetness exclusion and how many bulk guys, you know, were, are insured with progressive. I know we have a lot even insured with progressive and what a, what a, what a interest topic that is and how, you know, guys need to be aware of what that really means and how we can better understand the actual coverage and then also, you know, relay that to the carriers that, you know, serve, that serve these shippers. And so that's always been fun, but kind of an update on that Real quick, Progressive is, after you and I talked, we got with the Progressive rep and they're actually supposed to be rolling out in February to get rid of that exclusion. That's really interesting and I'm glad you brought that to our attention because it allowed us to kind of go back to progressive and just say, hey, we got to move all our bulk guys, got to get moved from you guys. Without this exclusion, it's not going to make sense for them to carry Progressive. And so I'm sure we're not the only ones in the industry that, that voiced it. But then now we're getting to the point where they're actually going to reintroduce it on the cargo farm. Larry Hurt : But I appreciate you reaching out and I think that, you know, you, you got such a unique product with Reliant and you've been in the game so long, you know, you've seen the changes. And I think a lot of people in our industry that are just getting into it, that haven't been able, that haven't been around a long time, haven't been able to see the progress and the changes that have gone over. So, you know, I appreciate your just vigilance and looking out for that and the small carrier, the owner, operator, the guys that, you know, haul for you as well. But I think collectively as an industry, we got to get better at getting this information out and allowing carriers to make educated decisions. And you know, they got to be willing to make hard decisions. Sometimes it probably means you don't take a load and I know that's tough and that's a pinch. Steve Miller: Well, you're a little bit self depreciating there. When you said you're sure other people are pointing this out. I'm not sure anybody else is. You know, my hats off to you guys for the advocate role you take for your customer base. And I kind of think you're the only voice in the wilderness. And so when I see stuff that, that, that I think really impacts people, you know, we do 1500 to 2000 loads a week. If it's happened, we've probably had to deal with it. So when I see stuff, you know, I reach out to you guys because it's really impactful because these small guys can't afford to lose a $50,000 cargo or a $10,000 cargo even. Steve Miller: That's the difference between them having a successful year and an unsuccessful year. So that's why we wanted to bring that to your attention and try to get that addressed because they just changed the policy. They didn't tell their agents, they didn't tell anybody. They just so that was really important to us. But you know, getting back, I think you guys should take a bow once in a while. And I know that's not your personality, but you guys are the advocate for the bulk industry and do a really nice job of that. And that's probably a position that you will grow because nobody else is doing it. So. Steve Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Jared Flinn: Appreciate that, Steve. So talk about real quick. I mean, I'll first say this. It is, it is a little sad that, like, it's not like it was back in the day. You know, you hear that even from our truckers, but man. Steve Miller: We'Re really old. Jared Flinn: You know, but it was really simple. Steve Miller: Back in the day. Jared Flinn: You got that facts that come through with the insurance the third. And I got it in hand. I just had to take it to the credit department for them to file away. And man, that carrier was good to go, you know, but, but I wanna, but, but really, practically speaking for those guys, listen to this podcast, like when they go to say they're on bulk loads, Shipper on there, they find a load, they want to haul it, Shipper sends over this agreement. What do they need to do to make sure that they're protecting themselves? Larry Hurt : Yeah, that's really good. I'd be curious, Steve, like, how do you guys vet those carriers that are going to haul for you? Steve Miller: Well, we use my carrier packets, which I think you do too, Jared, don't you? Yeah, but then we also use highway. We pull up on highway in addition to my carrier packet. We look there and we call the agents a lot of times and look at, for pollution endorsements, look for general liability, all those little things that don't show up on a standard insurance certificate. We spend a lot of time and a lot of people hours vetting these guys. And from a, from a legal standpoint, if you've ever been drugged into a courtroom, you can't do anything other than that. Larry Hurt : Yeah. Steve Miller: You got to spend that time doing that. Yeah. Larry Hurt : I think if you're a carrier and you're like, how do I protect myself? Like, where do I start? I think it's a hard, it's a, it's, it's a simple question, but it's hard to execute. And I think that's kind of the. What we see is, you know, you need to, we say this all the time on the insurance side, but you gotta have a relationship with your agent. Like, there's gotta be some sort of autonomy to pick up the phone and Call them and just say, hey guys, here's what I'm up against. Here's what the shipper's requiring. Give me some sort of feedback. And it doesn't have to be us. It can be any agent that's a good agent that should, that knows trucking really well. Larry Hurt : But there's gotta, there's gotta be some level of security that the person that is advising you is giving you some quality advice. And I think where, what we see a lot of times and where we have a lot of success for our agency is when you're with an agent that doesn't know trucking very well, they're probably not going to know any of these agreements and these, you know, contractual liability and what that means for a shipper or broker. And so I always stress like find a trucking specific agent. If you're a motor carrier, find somebody that, that lives and breathes trucking. The quality of information that you're going to get is, is just going to be better than the general insurance space. I think that's number one. And then the relationship, I think too many guys are the they're and price is always going to be an issue that we have to overcome. But you're so sometimes you can get so laser focused on the cheapest price that you'll cut out coverage that, that you need to have. Larry Hurt : And so there's got to be some ability and I think it goes back to trust with your agent and honestly your broker relationships too, where it's like, hey guys, like do I really need this coverage? You know, I see you're requiring workers comp. Do I need that? If state statue says I doesn't I don't. You know, having the ability to get some resources and answer those question is huge. And as a motor carrier that's just starting out, you got to build those relationships. That's where the networking comes in. That's where the conference, the load, the forum. I mean finding guys like Steve that are giving back to the industry after being in a long time, that's where you can build that out. Steve Miller: Well, I couldn't agree more. I mean it's always the old adage, if you get really sick, are you going to go to your GP to get well? Are you going to go to a specialist? So. And since insurance is such a huge part of protecting yourself and risk management, you need to go to somebody that specializes in truck insurance. And I'd say the same if you're big enough and got an accountant, you need to go to somebody that specializes in Carrier accounting or, you know, between those two, or if you have need for a lawyer, go to somebody that's a transportation lawyer. All those things cost more than if you don't. But the hidden cost on the other side makes it worth it. Jared Flinn: Yeah, I want to change the topics. I know this has been more focused on this agreement, but I think it's something worth addressing. And Steve, we've talked about this numerous times and we'll kind of land the plane on, on this. But besides the liability and you know, wrecks and all that, a big problem we still see in the industry is contamination of loads. Crowd, you know, not trailers, not getting. I know the volume that you all deal with load, Steve. I mean, it happens and try to work through that. But I just want to make that address because again, it can be like I remember again when that happened when I was working as a shipper and man, it pained me to death because I felt so bad for that driver. Jared Flinn: Like, I can remember, I can remember one instance where we were loading soybeans. He gets that destination. They find fertilizer pellets up on the rail. They reject that whole load. And that guy just bought, you know, I can't remember that time. 12 a bushel beans. You know, that driver times 900 bushels. So I really want to point that out because I think it's something that we got to keep pushing in the industry to really prevent this cross contamination. Steve Miller: No, you know, that's an everyday problem for us. Like I said, you know, doing 1200 to 2000 loads a week. We see it virtually every day. And you know, I would strongly recommend every carrier, when you have, when you hire a new driver, spend half a day and go through expectations with them, have a notebook filled full of those expectations so he could carry it with him. And it's more important than this is our insurance company. If something happens, if you can't get ahold of me, call my agent. But it's how to, how to load a load, how to carp a load securely, the expectations of cleaning out between loads. All those issues that we all deal with every day. Steve Miller: So it's easy to forget about how important they are if you have a new employee. They haven't lived, they haven't walked that path, so they don't know it, but it is truly, truly important. And yeah, and we've got a lot of SOPs built to try to prevent it from happening. But we enlist the help of the shippers, we enlist the help of the destinations to make sure those guys are completely dumped and shut their traps before they pull away and those type of things. So, no, that is. And that's just. There's not a lot that you can do or we can do that's kind of homework that you. Each carrier's got to do with his drivers. Steve Miller: So. But it's an exceptionally important thing, and it results in losses every day for guys. Larry Hurt : Yeah, I think too, you know, as Steve's kind of saying, you know, take that proactive approach with your drivers. And I think that's where it starts. You know, that could be a really expensive mistake if that gets rejected at the, at the receiver. And you know something, you know, we get this call a lot being in the bulk insurance spaces, hey, this load's contaminated. I want to file a claim. Negligence is not covered by insurance. And I think that's something that people get wrong a lot of times. Contamination because it's rejected and it's the driver's fault that is typically not covered. Larry Hurt : I have yet to find a cargo policy that's going to cover the negligence of that driver. So that's something that's a tough conversation you hope you, you know, you hope you don't have to have. And I think that's what Steve's saying is have that conversation, have those, you know, be proactive instead of reactive and just think, because what's really going to happen is you're going to be responsible for that load, and you're either going to find somebody that's going to take it and it's, you're going to make 20 cents on the dollar for it, or you're going to get rid of the load and it's good, you know, could cost you a couple thousand dollars. So those are tough mistakes to happen. Jared Flinn: A couple thousand dollars. I mean, tens of thousand dollars, you'd be, I mean, five, six figures probably on some of these loads. Steve Miller: Oh, you can, you can. We had a. We had an elevator. Well, it was a flour mill one time, but we were hauling all this grain in, and a guy went and did a load of fertilizer and didn't clean out. And we dumped a load of wheat into a flour mill and we were the only ones hauling it in. So they knew where it came from. The flour mill had no way to dispose of the grain except to grind it the way it was designed. They knocked a hole in the side of the mill to suck that grain out. Steve Miller: There was 100,000 bushel, two. And then you had to fix the elevator. That one was plenty ugly. By the time we were done with. Larry Hurt : It so yeah, that's crazy. Jared Flinn: So case in point. Actually, I think I've been. I talked to our marketing team. I'm gonna try to develop these tutorial videos on how to properly tarp clean. It'll inspect. And again, it's simple and as stupid as it sounds, it's so critically important. If we can save just one person from cross contaminating a load. Yeah, I think it's hu. Jared Flinn: Huge and I mean it's just educational. I want to end on this one, Steve, because I think it's. This story's old enough where I think you can tell it well, but like the. Tell us about the cross contamination that dealt with the. I'll just put it. The birds on the highway. Steve Miller: Yeah, you tell some of these stories and they come back to haunt you. You know, we were hauling aggregate for a construction company out of Oklahoma up to Kansas and I get a call and it's like there's corn in this rock and we didn't see it. They mixed up the asphalt and blacktop the road. Well then they turned the traffic out. The birds would land on the road to peck at the corn and get run over. Yes. Jared Flinn: So he said, I mean it was just like a war zone of dead birds. Steve Miller: Yeah, it's just a war zone. Eventually the ones that lived ate enough or the ones that died had eaten some before they got ran over. So the problem kind of took care of itself after a while. But yeah, there was some interesting phone calls there. It was. Was not enjoyable. We also did the basically the same thing on a. On a Runway in a small town airport one time too. Jared Flinn: Oh wow. Yeah. Again, when you're dealing with that multitude of loads, heaven forbid, but you know that you just. That that stuff happens. Well, Steve, I can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast today. I found this really insightful and I think there's some of these podcasts you do that are a little more entertaining. But I think this is one that. That's really, really informative and going to impact a lot of our community and carrier base. Jared Flinn: So I appreciate you for that. We're going to have you at. You're going to come down to the conference coming up in April. We're excited for that. I'm sure these are going to be some discussions. So I just want to kind of put a selfish plug make sure and come to the conference this April. We'll put the links below in the Episode notes bulk freightconference.com But I think we'll be talking a lot about this there's so many things to cover in bulk freight trucking, but this is one. When you're talking about risk management, it's not sexy, but it's so important and it has to be addressed. Steve Miller: Yeah, in a lot of cases it's, it's, it directly impacts your longevity in the industry. I mean, these, these kind of instances can take a company completely out. So. Yeah. Jared Flinn: Awesome. Steve Miller: Cool. Jared Flinn: You're going to say something. Larry Hurt : Yeah, I was just going to say thanks to Steve for, you know, bringing these, bringing these cases up and let's keep collaborating on them and let's make the industry better. Steve Miller: Yeah. Well, I'm just thrilled, Larry, that you got Progressive to change their mind. So like I said, I think you guys are the advocate for the bulk industry and can have a huge impact and because I don't see anybody else doing it or anybody else that cares. So I think it's wonderful. Larry Hurt : Awesome. Jared Flinn: Cool. Well, thanks for coming on, Steve man. We'll see you in April. Steve Miller: Alrighty. Take care, guys. Jared Flinn: I feel like it was such a blessing to have Steve on. I've known him so long, he's a veteran in the industry, a well known name their company. So it was always, it was just awesome to actually have him on the show. Finally to bring him on. I was like, I felt like if we're like full circle now, we finally got him on the Bull Close podcast after all these years and actually I don't think I've ever asked him. So maybe it was just that the. Larry Hurt : First time that he's ever been on. Jared Flinn: Yeah, it was the first time their company's been on, so. And we've had other big brokerages that have been on and so yeah, it was really cool. So I know a lot of people know of them, but yeah, this just gives you a little bit better glimpse of Steve and their company. Larry Hurt : Yeah, it's cool to see his story and how he's grown and how he's been dedicated to the bulk industry. I think that goes a long way and obviously from the podcast he's just got a lot of knowledge and so it's fun to get somebody like that that's a veteran in the industry on and talk about their experiences. Jared Flinn: Just not to beat a dead horse, but when talking about. Because I know when you're getting set up with a shipper again, sometimes it's time sensitive, sometimes you're getting something sent over, you're signing it real quick just so you can get that load. But, but talk about, Larry, just a couple maybe practical steps you got to do before or how can we, how can we help make sure that you're not signing something that you're going to regret? Larry Hurt : Yeah, no, it's a, it's a tough topic and I think we, you know, we address this in the, in the podcast. But, you know, it's, it's really important to have somebody that you trust that can advise you. And you know, we, we say this too. You know, sometimes you're going to be waiting on a load, could be a backhaul, could be a really important load to get a guy home. And that's a, that's a tough situation to be in. But you got to understand that these are leg contracts that are binding documents. And when the rubber meets the road, attorneys will go back on these contracts and determine whether there was negligence, whether you signed it, you know, whether you were upholding to the standards of the contract. And so I think just practically speaking, call your agent and send them a copy of the contract. Larry Hurt : I mean, I think that's step number one, if so, insurance agent. Yeah, if you're, if you have a contract with a shipper or broker that's saying, here's the insurance requirements. I mean, I get them all the time from our clients. You know, hey, Larry, can you look at this? I think I've even posted on the forum where it's like, hey, if you guys have shipper contracts you want me to look at, you might not be happy with my answer. The answer might be, hey, this probably is not in your favor. It's probably not a good idea to sign this. But I would rather give you that knowledge up front, let you make the decision, because ultimately it's your decision as the motor carrier. You know, you gotta, you gotta make that call. Larry Hurt : And if that load's important enough, maybe it makes sense from an insurance standpoint and are just risk, risk transfer and risk management. A lot of these contracts don't make sense and that contractual liability a lot of times for a carrier is not going to make sense. So it's just having somebody that you can bounce the ideas off, somebody that you trust. If you don't have a trucking specific agent, get one, you know, don't have an agent that deals in property and casualty when you're a trucking company. I think that's just a really practical step. Jared Flinn: I don't want to overspeak, overstep. But I would say even if you're not with bulk insurance group, which we hope one day you are, but you'd still gladly look at those, our team can look at those contracts for their. Larry Hurt : Yeah on Monday I, I had a, one of a. A large bulk loads client reach out and just said hey, you know I don't, I'm not his agent, we don't do his insurance. He just said hey, what do you think about this? I'm not sure if my agent's covering all their basis and I reviewed the contract and just sent him a page email back hey, here's what I think so it doesn't have to be you know you not like you got to compensate us or anything. We're here to support the bulk industry and the carriers and if it's just. And most of the contracts are the same. Right. So a lot of these contracts that I'm looking at there's not going to be a huge variance in language but there's going to be some hold harmless waivers of subjugation, some of those things additional insured and I can at least explain them to you in, in layman's terms so that you understand what you're signing. Jared Flinn: I'm glad there's guys like you and Tanner and that can do these specifics because it is not my skill set I should say a lot of our companies and carriers, it's not their skill set too but yeah, yeah it's just. Larry Hurt : An added layer of protection and you know I think you're better off getting some advice before you sign. Steve Miller: Yeah. Jared Flinn: What's it gonna hurt? I know sometimes it can be time sensitive but man if you don't take the time there may be some bad consequences for that. So. Cool. Awesome. Well man, thanks Larry for joining in on that conversation with Steve. We're looking forward to having Steve at the bulk freight conference. We'll probably be talking about risk management and some of these things at the conference so you'll see the link below. Get signed up. Jared Flinn: I want to make sure people get there and you have time to do it. Get signed up. I know right now it's going to be around the corner and we're getting a lot, a lot of stuff put together. If you have questions about the conference maybe that we don't have on the website reach out to us. We can answer address any of those but I think go ahead and plan on now. It's going to be a great event. I think you will not regret it. Larry Hurt : Yep, can't wait. Jared Flinn: Yeah, awesome. A couple other things before we head out of here just bulk insurance group for those that don't know. I mean we're now pacing on this is our third year. Larry Hurt : Yeah it'll be three years in June. Jared Flinn: Yeah. So, man, it's been. Seems like it's been longer than I know. It really does. Larry Hurt : It feels long and short both at the same time, but it's been flying by. Jared Flinn: Yeah. But I just want to say if, man, this year, if you have questions on your insurance or looking to shop it around or just, you know, want to get our take, man, reach out to us. We have a team of producers backing people, Larry, that we can help out on that. As we've grown this, we've gotten laser focus. Some of the markets that we've actually acquired and brought on to get really, I don't want to say affordable, but competing and good coverage. Larry Hurt : Yeah. Jared Flinn: So, man, I know insurance is a pain, man. Reach out to us. We want to help on that one. Larry Hurt : Yeah. No, I appreciate that. We have the best markets we've ever had and I think we're kind of over that two year hump and we've done a lot of business and so we've got a lot of good partnerships specifically for bulk too. And so we've got the best insurance carrier mix that we've ever had. And that's exciting to be able to give you guys the best products and the best access to products in the marketplace. Steve Miller: Yeah. Jared Flinn: There's a quick link if you drop down in the episode notes, you can go to. I think it's just like three or four questions that we ask you and we can actually give you a quote, right? Yeah. Larry Hurt : We can give you an estimation of whether or not we think we can beat your current insurance. Jared Flinn: So drop down below, click on that link and just with a few quick steps, we can just tell you if we can be in the ballpark. It's not going to be a huge burden on yours. So. Yeah, make sure and do that. So cool. And then lastly, if you haven't seen yet, last week we finally released the Earl Martin video. That thing has gone viral, I think as we speak. We're over close to 30,000 views on that one. Jared Flinn: Dude, that one, you've said it. Larry Hurt : Yeah. Jared Flinn: It's probably one of our best videos we've done so far. Larry Hurt : I think it's my favorite one. Jared Flinn: Yeah. So go if it'll be. If you're watching from YouTube, it's on this channel. Go down and watch that video. You will love it. I know we still already have, I think three more that we've recorded. We're just getting into production. We got a lot scheduled for 2025. Jared Flinn: We're really, really excited to go out there. I Can't tell you. I just, I'm. I'm itching to get more of these done. I'm always itching for Jody. I'm like, I'm always pressuring, like, can you get this done faster, faster. But, man, he is an artist and you got to let artists, got to let them create. You got to let them create. Jared Flinn: So cool. Well, man, we'll. As we do as every podcast, we always end with prayer. Larry, I'm going to switch over to you if you want to pray for us as we close out of here. Larry Hurt : Yep. Dear Lord, we just come before you, God, and we just thank you for this opportunity to be in this industry, God, and to serve our clients and our families, God, we pray that you would bless all of our listeners. God bless our companies, God bless our employees, Lord, we just submit these companies to you, God, and we submit 20, 25 to you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Jared Flinn: Amen. Thank you as always for listening to the Bulk Loads podcast. If you haven't yet, go ahead and click the subscribe button button below. That way you never miss an episode. And if you can do us just one favor, one small favor, make sure and share this. If you know a trucking company out there that can benefit from this, especially when they're dealing with contracts and getting onboarded, whether a carrier get is getting set up with a shipper or broker, this might be very valuable. So please share this. To those out there that can help in our community, thank you so much. Jared Flinn: And as always, God bless.