Trucking firms evade safety enforcement
U.S. commercial trucking networks are reportedly evading federal safety enforcement by dissolving flagged operations and reopening under new names, a pattern regulators say is undermining enforcement efforts. An insurance firm is responding by building a U.S. trucking practice focused on data, safety tech and claims advocacy. (cbsnews.com, insurancebusinessmag.com)
Some U.S. trucking fleets are dodging federal safety penalties by shutting down on paper and reopening under new names, a practice regulators call “chameleon carriers.” (cbsnews.com) CBS News reported on April 12 that its eight-month investigation traced one such network, Super Ego Holding, to trucking and leasing companies in Serbia and the United States. The company is under federal investigation and is named in a class action lawsuit, according to the report. (cbsnews.com) The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration uses the term “chameleon carrier” for a company that applies for new operating authority to hide its links to an older carrier with unpaid fines, out-of-service orders or other enforcement problems. Congress pressed the agency more than a decade ago to build a risk-based method to identify those carriers. (fmcsa.dot.gov) The agency’s public SAFER system lets shippers, insurers and the public look up a carrier’s safety record, crash history and operating status. That system is only as useful as the identity attached to the record, which is why regulators have long treated recycled ownership, addresses and management ties as warning signs. (fmcsa.dot.gov, fmcsa.dot.gov) The insurance market is now responding to the same problem from the underwriting side. Howden said on April 12 that it launched a dedicated United States Trucking Practice focused on data, safety technology and claims advocacy in a casualty segment it described as one of the toughest in the market. (insurancebusinessmag.com) Howden said the new practice will be led by Managing Director Chris Ficarra and will serve fleets ranging from local operators to long-haul trucking businesses. The brokerage said the unit is meant to help clients with risk selection, loss control and claims handling as trucking losses stay costly. (insurancebusinessmag.com) That puts two parts of the same industry on parallel tracks: federal regulators trying to spot carriers that keep changing identities, and brokers trying to price and manage the risk those fleets create. Both efforts depend on linking a truck, a driver and a company to the right record the first time. (cbsnews.com, fmcsa.dot.gov, insurancebusinessmag.com) The unresolved question is whether enforcement can move faster than the paperwork. As long as a bad safety record can be shed more easily than the trucks behind it, the next company name may not tell drivers much about the risk beside them on the highway. (cbsnews.com, fmcsa.dot.gov)
