Transportation Plugin

October 25, 2007

Transportation certificate of insurance management system for Insurance Agents, General Agencies and Carriers who specialize in truck insurance. In addition to managing the certificate process for contractors and manufacturing type risks, eCertsONLINE now offers additional industry specific functionality to meet the unique needs of other lines of business, including transportation.

A common business practice for trucking companies is to hire owner-operators under contract to haul their goods (see related story below),  and until now the drivers, vehicles, coverage provided, and premiums charged, have made tracking and management a daunting and time-consuming task for any insurance agency writing these types of risks.

At the end of each month, agencies are required to spend untold hours manually compiling and sorting this information in preparation to send to the insurance carrier and insured, only to have the information challenged at the time of audit either by the insured or the carrier. That has now changed.

The eCertsONLINE transportation certificate of insurance module enables the agency or insured to enter the driver, vehicle, and coverage information online which is date and time stamped for binding purposes; automatically issue a certificate of insurance to either the owner-operator and/or vehicle leinholder; issue a state specific ACORD auto ID card and compute the appropriate premium to be charged.

Even more, the eCertsONLINE transportation module tracks suspensions and reinstatement of coverage while the owner-operators lease themselves out to other trucking companies. (see related story below). Now at the end of each month and with a few clicks of the mouse, a report is generated in an Adobe Portable Document Format PDF for the insured and in a Microsoft Excel document for the agency with all of the transactions recorded for the previous month. The eCertsONLINE reports may then be used for billing purposes since they utilize the same information supplied and/or entered by the insured.

The eCertsONLINE transportation module provides a cost-effective way to manage your transportation risks by streamlining business processes and improving customer care.

Industry related story:  Small truckers are big business to our agency by Ed Therrien, UIG Transportation/Presque Isle, Maine.  While some major trucking companies operate fleets of hundreds and even thousands of tractor-trailers, there are also plenty of small owner-operators, often one-person businesses having a single rig.
—Insurance for nontrucking use: A minority of our owner-operators annually lease themselves out to larger trucking companies. Such a client becomes part of the company’s fleet, operates under the company’s motor carrier authority and is covered by the company’s auto liability insurance—but only while he is under dispatch by the company. For these clients, we provide insurance for nontrucking use, which covers an owner-operator’s auto liability at other times.
Servicing accounts: Another reason we wrap things up early is to make sure we have time to process certificates of insurance. Most of our truckers have extensive lists of clients, loss payees, brokers and fleet operators to whom they must provide evidence of insurance. When coverage renews, we must update the certificates with the new policy numbers, among other things. Taking care of such matters in advance also allows us to more easily accommodate last-minute changes for clients.
Published by Agent and Broker  Read related story »

Interested in learning more about the eCertsONLINE transportation module? Talk to an eCertsONLINE representative 1-206-784-5157 or request a product demonstration via the web.