A battle is shaping up over the efforts of the federal truck safety agency to raise the minimum financial responsibility requirements for motor carriers, something which has not been done since the 1980s.

It comes as the trucking industry is also trying to stop implementation of rules effective July 1 that place a firmer limit on the number of hours drivers can be on duty. The America Truckers Association has filed suit to halt the changes, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has inserted a provision in a federal transportation appropriations bill that would delay the changes for at least one year.

The House voted June 10, 214-212 along party lines, to add language to the Dept. of Transportation (DOT) appropriations bill, H.R. 4742, denying funding for proposed Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) rulemaking aimed at raising the minimum insurance required for interstate carriers.

The amendment was sponsored by Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont. It followed a spirited debate on the House floor June 9 between Daines and Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa. Cartwright last year introduced legislation, H.R.2730, the Safe and Fair Environment on Highways Achieved through Underwriting Levels Act of 2013, that would increase the current minimum for motor carriers transporting property from $750,000 to $4.422 million. It also requires the Secretary of Transportation to adjust such amount annually for inflation relating to medical care.

The June 10 vote and the upcoming proposal to raise the limits from the truck agency is just the first step in what is expected to be a longer battle pitting insurers and truckers against plaintiff's lawyers.

The dog they are fighting over has been sleeping since the 1980s, when the minimum financial standard was set by the FMCSA as part of an effort to deregulate oversight of transportation companies.

The sleeping dog was awakened through a provision in a 2012 transportation law that the FMCSA conduct a study examining minimum insurance requirements for motor carriers and report back to Congress.

The FMCSA said in its report, released in April, that while catastrophic motor-carrier crashes are rare, the costs for resulting severe and critical injuries can far exceed current minimum liability requirements.

“In conclusion, FMCSA has determined that the current financial responsibility minimums are inadequate to fully cover the costs of some crashes in light of increased medical costs and revised value of statistical life estimates,” the report says.

Following the June 10 vote, Burton LeBlanc, president of the American Association for Justice, which represents plaintiff lawyers, said the mandate has remained unchanged since the 1980s despite truck crashes often costing over $4.3 million per crash.

“Injured motorists, taxpayers, and health insurers are left to pay the difference,” LeBlanc says.

“Raising minimum insurance requirements— and adjusting them for ination in the future—would restore a key economic incentive to motivate the truck and bus industry to focus on improving safety,” he added.

Daines said on the House floor that FMCSA's plan for higher liability coverage will be proposed despite the fact that the Department of Transportation has determined that less than 0.2% of truck-involved accidents have property and injury damages that exceed the current minimum liability coverage requirements.

Daines argued, “Current proposals regarding the insurance increase call for minimum levels to go up by more than 500%, and this would lead to a significant reduction in insurance availability for motor carriers, especially small businesses. The bottom line is this: the trial lawyers win, the small businesses lose.”

Daines contended premiums could increase by more than four times the current levels, up to $20,000 per truck, and that more than 40% of currently operating motor carriers could go out of business due to these new requirements.

“There is no evidence supporting higher insurance requirements that would result in improved safety,” Daines said. “Increasing minimum insurance levels is not the best way to meet the needs of catastrophic accident victims.”

Cartwright called the Daines amendment “a threat to the safety of Americans on the roadway,” and “counter to the goal we all share to protecting and preserving Social Security and Medicare, two vital safety-net programs in this country.”

Above all, Cartwright said, “it destroys accountability in the safety rules in the trucking industry.”

Insurance-industry groups declined comment. David Golden, senior director of commercial lines for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, said PCI would withhold comment until the rule is actually proposed by FMCSA.

An industry executive with knowledge of the transportation industry recently spoke to PC360 (see related story) about the impact the FMCSA proposal would have on motor carriers of passengers, which was also examined in the April report. Raising the minimum limits—currently $5 million for 16 or more passengers and $1.5 million for 15 or fewer passengers—would result in higher rates, but over time, perhaps three or four years as claims develop, he said.

The executive highlighted the potential impact of “limits pull,” where settlement values are inherently pulled up as available limits increase.

Steve Weisbart, chief economist at the Insurance Information Institute, said a potential factor that could combat the rising cost of claims is the possibility that higher premiums will “provoke a little more interest on the part of motor carriers to identify issues that lead to accidents.”

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