Chapter 2: Ten years later, the insurer walked in
Updated: 1 day ago
A decade ago, Cancun Express kept its safety program in seven garbage bags. On September 30, Sovereign Insurance sent a senior risk specialist to audit it. He left with zero recommendations.
The Stranger in the Boardroom
Every carrier gets audited by someone. Regulators draw names. Customers draw names. And at renewal, an insurer can send a person to sit in your boardroom and read your file line by line.
On September 30, Sovereign Insurance did exactly that for Cancun Express, arranged through HUB International, Cancun's broker. The man they sent has spent twenty years auditing commercial fleets for insurers. Before that he spent a career in trucking, from courier vans to tractor trailers to running a fleet. He built Sovereign's fleet risk management program.
He told the room how these meetings usually go. He usually leaves with recommendations, and he rarely gets out in under two hours.
What He Came Looking For
He said it plainly: premiums are the broker's job. His job is loss exposure, and he tests it the way every insurer and every lawyer does. If it is not documented, it did not happen.
So he asked the questions every insurer asks. How are drivers hired, and are abstracts, road tests and reference checks done? Who trains new drivers, and is it written down? Who audits the logs, and how? Does the shop follow the maintenance policy, or only the paper? What happens when a driver gets a violation? Is the carrier profile pulled every month, or does it just show up at renewal?
The File Answered
Isaak Thiessen did not have to answer from memory. Sarah Shaw, our Director of Operations, opened the meeting with a twelve-month review of Cancun's program: carrier profile, hours of service, training, maintenance and driver retention. In twenty years of audits, nobody had started a meeting with him that way.
Then the file covered the rest.
An R-factor of zero, below the industry average, with zero convictions and zero collisions on the current profile.
Every driver log audited every month and checked against trip inspections. One fatigue flag in July, a driver on holiday who had not recorded his days, was reviewed, signed off and filed.
A maintenance policy of every 20,000 kilometres or every month, whichever comes first. The shop actually ran it every 8,500 to 11,000 kilometres, with a full inspection record for every month.
Carrier profile pulled monthly. Driver abstracts twice a year.
Average driver tenure of four years. Thirteen of eighteen drivers past two years, and four past eight.
The maintenance question is the one that usually produces his most common recommendation, because shops often run past the interval the policy promises. Cancun's shop runs well inside it.
Zero Recommendations
He closed the meeting with no recommendations. He told the room he does not make a recommendation for the sake of making one, and he had none to make. His word for it was rare.
He did offer one suggestion, and he chose not to write it up. Cancun's seven-day practical training for new drivers is recorded on the customer's system. He suggested getting copies into Cancun's own file, because in a lawsuit the first question is what training the driver had. Oil companies do not usually hand those records over. We are asking for them anyway.
The meeting finished well inside his usual two hours. On the way out, he asked to see the shop.
What Managed Looks Like
A decade ago this program was seven garbage bags in a basement. On September 30 nobody had to rescue anything. The file was ready because somebody runs it every month.
Nobody picks the day someone opens the file. This time the insurer picked it. That is what having us in your corner looks like.
Nobody Picks The Day
Nobody picks the day someone opens the file. Cancun did not pick theirs. Their customer drew it out of a hat.
If your biggest customer drew your name tomorrow, would you hand them a binder or a bag?
Talking to us is free. Staying exposed is not.
Published with the permission of Cancun Express Ltd. Sovereign Insurance and HUB International are named with permission.
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