Welcome to summer.  I must say that we were all greatly impressed with how smart you all are when we reviewed the submissions to our contest on the meaning of our new logo.  Some of you made it sound even better than what we articulated!  The winning response, as determined by the absolutely subjective decision of the staff here at CAB was submitted by Anthony V. Engel from Chubb. His interpretation:

 “New logo looks great and symbolizes that CAB is the place to take multiple data input sources and streamline them through the CAB to get useful analysis for better decision making. CAB – your one-stop source for everything related to Transportation Risk.”

So many of you were close, but he was the first one, timed by e-mail submission to get to the point.  Anthony has asked us to donate his winning gift certificate to a charity.  His prize is being sent to US War Dogs, an organization helping military animals, www.uswardogs.org. Thank you Anthony for that extra showing of kindness.  Thank you all for contributing. We were actually surprised that we did not get many smart alec remarks, since we personally know so many of you!

Just a reminder to all of our premium subscribers that there is a new tab – the History tab – on the Submission Report™  which will allows you to see the changes made by the carrier on its MCS-150 form as well as the historical ISS-D and BASIC scores.  As part of our commitment to help you truly Know Your Insureds, we have added this enhanced feature to provide deeper insight into the potential risks.

This month we report:

INDEMNIFICATION CLAUSES – Oregon has joined forces with 30 other states to preclude shippers from requiring indemnity from motor carriers for transportation contracts, including incidental and assessorial services which carriers provide, including storage incident to transportation.  The new legislation will impact contracts entered into after May 27, 2011.

U.S. FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION FORECAST TO 2022 – The ATA has released its report on its forecast for trucking and the forecast is for sunny skies!  Trucking continues to dominate freight transport, with 67% of the freight tonnage and 81% of the freight revenue. Overall freight tonnage is expected to grow by 24% by 2022, with trucking share of tonnage increasing to 70% and revenues up slightly to 81.4%.

Read More

Welcome to the new “CABAdvantage Bits & Pieces”.  We have worked hard at CAB to be the “go to” place for all motor carrier information.  Utilizing the wealth of data provided by CAB gives you the advantage that you need to operate successfully. We want you to have the CABAdvantage!  We created a new logo to go with the “new and improved” CAB.  We would love to know what you think.  There is a $50 gift certificate for the first person to e-mail us and correctly explain what this logo signifies! E-mail Mark Schweber with your entry.

Our new website is www.cabadvantage.com (we recommend that you save it to your favorites) and our email suffix has been changed from @cabfinancial.com to @cabadvantage.com.  But don’t worry – using our old website and email addresses will still get you where you need to be until you update your records.

A great time was had by all at the IMUA annual meeting in Chicago. Although it was a bit brisk weather wise, it was great to connect with everyone again and to let Tiana Cain finally meet all of the people that I have talked about.  Thank you to everyone who stopped by our table to meet her. I, as you would expect, never sat at the table – there are just too many people to talk to and not enough time.  A special acknowledgement goes out to Frank Oleskiewicz who received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the IMUA.  Frank has been an asset to the industry and it has been my great pleasure to work with him on the transportation committee these many years.  The award could not have gone to a better candidate.

This month I will be speaking at the IMUA Great Lakes Advisory Meeting in Ohio together with Mike Guthrie of GenRe, so plan a frolicking and fun-filled afternoon discussing carriers, brokers, and warehouseman and their insurance needs.   You can register for the program, in Ohio, at the IMUA website at www.imua.org.

As a much loved godson leaves to serve in Afghanistan this Memorial Day it reminds me once again to be thankful to all of those who serve and protect our country.  So to all of our service members, both now and in the past, we salute you and wish you well this Memorial Day holiday.

Read More