THE MOST recent hard market, from which we're perhaps just beginning to emerge, has been harsher than usual, and the trucking insurance niche has been affected like all others. Many of the factors leading to the hard market are fairly easy to identify: the attacks of 9/11, hurricanes and other catastrophic losses; lack of tort reform; the decline in the stock market; and asbestos, mold and other environmental issues.

Mismanagement has also played a role in the difficult market. In the trucking insurance industry, there's enough blame to go around for everyone. Reinsurers have been accepting carriers' reported results without performing thorough and comprehensive audits. Primary insurers haven't adequately evaluated their trucking clients' financial conditions. During the soft market they discounted premiums year after year, until they offered coverage practically at a 50% discount from a few years earlier. MGAs and retail agencies have played their parts, rounding up prospects during soft markets with less concern about how well-qualified the prospects were.

But the participants in trucking insurance should realize they are "all on the same side." Carriers, MGAs and retail agencies seek profits through proper premiums and low costs. Trucking firms want low premiums and coverage for as many situations as possible. I'd like to suggest, contrary to the conventional wisdom, that these goals don't have to be mutually exclusive. We can work together to analyze a client's loss experience and develop strategies to reduce operational and insurance expenses through effective loss control.