Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast

Transforming Trucking Safety: The Role of Technology and Data, with Mark Epperson

• John Farquhar & Chris Harris • Season 2 • Episode 90

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Trucking Risk and Insurance with Mark Epperson: Improving Safety with Technology

In this episode of the Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast, guest Mark Epperson, co-lead of Alliant Specialties Transportation Vertical, discusses the firm's approach to improving safety and reducing costs in the trucking industry through data-driven telematics and innovative insurance products. 

He shares insights into how telematics data and technology can help trucking companies monitor and enhance driver performance, reduce retained losses, and ultimately drive better economic outcomes. 

The conversation also touches on the industry's reputation challenges, the importance of newer technology in trucks, and the current state of the commercial auto insurance market.

You can contact Mark Epperson:
mark.epperson@alliant.com
https://alliant.com/risk-management/alliant-specialty/transportation-insurance/

Your Hosts: 

John Farquhar
Summit Risk Solutions: summitrisksolutions.ca
1 226 802-2762
John@summitrisksolutions.ca


Chris Harris
Safety Dawg Inc: safetydawg.com
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
1 905 973 7056



00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:55 Understanding the Transportation Vertical
01:32 Cross-Border Presence and Market Challenges
02:19 Unique Value Proposition of Alliant
02:46 Telematics and Data-Driven Insights
03:50 Driver Behavior and Safety Improvements
05:09 Technology Adoption in Trucking
22:43 Insurance Market Trends and Challenges
25:35 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
#trucksafety #truckinsurance #truckpodcast

Do you need a "Truck Driver Safety Policy?" Get it today! https://safetydawg.com/policy

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Mark, welcome to the Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast. Can you introduce yourself for our viewers and listeners?

Mark Epperson:

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Mark Epperson, uh, I co lead, um, Alliant Specialties Transportation Vertical. Uh, Alliant is, uh, uh, a broker based in the U. S., um, built around specialty and transportation is, uh, our most recent vertical. Uh, so myself and colleagues, uh, Mark Nunes Patrick O'Driscoll recently joined to help build out our transportation capabilities for the firm.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Cool. When you say vertical to. Trucking people. What the heck is a vertical?

Mark Epperson:

Just think of it as, uh, as an industry practice, but we got to name it something a little bit different to make it interesting.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Right. So I just wanted everybody to understand. Basically, they're an insurance broker or an insurance agent and they write trucks.

John Farquhar:

I was going to say it's better than being horizontal, because that just sounds like you're laying down on the job. That's a little more challenging to describe

Mark Epperson:

and, uh,

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

And I found this interesting. You're in the majority of states and your brokerage also has a presence in Canada.

Mark Epperson:

Uh, we don't want our neighbors to the north to feel left out. And, uh, especially in transportation, right? A lot of overlap between Canadian and U. S. companies. A lot of, uh, active acquisition activity. From Canadian companies in the U S uh, presence that, that we needed, uh, uh, to be able to properly care of our clients.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

There is a lot of mergers and acquisitions going on at the end. Bankruptcies.

Mark Epperson:

Oh gosh. Yes. Uh, an unfortunate reality and, uh, the market that, uh, we're in right now.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Hey, what would make it unique? Why would I look out or reach out to Mark? Um, You know, there's lots of established brokers in the, in this market already. What makes it unique that I would get from Mark and the company?

Mark Epperson:

A great question, right? We're, we're kind of the new kids on the block, as you could say. Now, all of us have experience at either other brokers or transportation companies. Um, You know, in our past, but for Alliant, a lot of our value proposition is based around telematics, um, and using, using data to help our clients, um, understand their, their behaviors, understand their outcomes, and kind of their, their risk exposures, and ultimately drive Uh, Better Outcomes.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

By better outcomes, what do you mean? You're talking about Meaning

Mark Epperson:

better economics. From an insurance perspective. And so, you know, a lot of that could be reducing losses. Uh, reducing retained losses. We do have some facilities. We have, in particular, an excess facility that ties the telematic so our customers can save money based on their driving behavior, uh, in a, in a layer or in a, in a product with, with excess liability. That's, uh, that's quite expensive and challenging to find. So trying to help, uh, trying to help our clients and insurance carrier partners. Align interests and hopefully, uh, everybody can make money at that.

John Farquhar:

Well, and one of the bonuses is, you know, one of the bonuses is when you're working on this level that you're talking about, the focus is to reduce losses. But if I'm that guy that goes, well, I don't have very many losses to begin with. Well, then now I can help affect the bottom line with this process.

Mark Epperson:

For sure. Absolutely. And even if you don't have losses, right? If you think about the historical way that this industry has looked at drivers, it's been, you know, let's look at, let's look at incidents over a long period of time to try to predict the future. And so we, you know, that was an MVR. That was an inspection report. That was maybe a loss. Um, now we don't really have to do that, right? There's a, there's an ELD on, on every one of those units. Right. There's plenty of technology coming off the new trucks. I mean, you can look at, you can see every second of driver behavior and understand, you know, who's driving well, uh, and who's getting lucky, right? And so it's, it's not a matter of, because you've had some individuals or drivers that have been getting lucky, or maybe you validate that, Hey, you, you've got a, you've got a driver, a driver population that's better than everybody else. And you can take that data now and, um, you know, and share that externally and prove that you're a better. But you're a better risk. You're not just getting lucky,

John Farquhar:

right? Well, and the ability to move forward here and work in real time rather than historical time.

Mark Epperson:

Absolutely. We had a, I tell people I had a story, I had an insurance carrier that came to us, um, and that was in a prior life. And the, the underwriter said, Hey, I want to write, I want to write all the nuns and none of the convicts. And we told them, we were like, well, how about we, how about we tell you which nuns are speeding and which convicts are a little bit better behind the wheel. And so we don't have to look in, in kind of broad terms. You can pinpoint it down to the driver level and understand, understand. And understand performance that is likely to drive both, both risk and operational outcomes.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

A lot of the, it's amazing the information that's coming from telematics now and from the truck manufacturers as well. And so is this similar to a driver scorecard and you sharing the driver scorecard with the insurer?

Mark Epperson:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're, we're aggregating telematics data, um, at the fleet level, and then we break it down by individual unit. We're showing a score, um, and we show insurance carriers. You know, kind of where that score sits on the, um, on the spectrum, right? It's a, it's a red, green or yellow, right? And, and we provide that back to our clients as well and show them, you know, for us, we're, we're trying to get them to focus on the top 10 percent and incentivize those and look at the bottom 10 percent and say, how can you, you know, help them change behaviors and based on the data that we're seeing here are some suggestions on.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Like slow the hell down, God.

Mark Epperson:

usually a pretty, pretty quick way to go, or it's usually the first place to look. Yeah.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Oh God, I, yeah. When I, when I look at telematics, that is frequently the thing, the the most frequent violation. Um, because they all seem to know what the speed limits are in, in all the neighborhoods, including the non high, what we would call interstates. Uh, so on the city streets, they know that you're speeding as well. Like, drivers, and I guess, Mark, I was going to make a statement, but I'll ask a question instead. Do drivers understand that they're being monitored nowadays?

Mark Epperson:

I think they have to, right? I mean, with, and whether it's, you're being monitored by the, by your, you know, by your company you're employed from, or, you know, they all should at least know they're being, they're being monitored by the FMCSA, right? With the electronic device mandate. Kind of made sure that was the case. Um, not all, you know, not every driver gets it. I will say it does seem to have an impact on, you know, on clients and companies we're working with that have, that have implemented inward facing cameras, that sometimes becomes the, that's the, that's kind of the light switch for a lot of drivers to, to realize that, Hey, somebody's watching. Somebody's watching because they're trying to help, right? It's not a, when done correctly, drivers, or when implemented correctly, drivers can understand that those devices are there to help them more than hurt them, right? It's, it's, it really is, it's for protection of the driver, protection of the trucking company or transportation firm. And ultimately protection of the public.

John Farquhar:

Well, and sadly enough, we, we have a real reputation problem in the industry because of, you know, everybody thinks, Oh, truck drivers are terrible. Oh, they go too fast and whatnot, but there are a lot of good truck drivers out there. Drivers that pay attention to their behaviors in this technology and use it to become better drivers and, and companies that are, um, I guess I want to say embracing this process. are also helping to improve their reputation within the industry. So, but unfortunately, we've still got some bad apples out there and, uh, you know, I think that's where in the process of what you guys are doing by bringing in that program to help those companies to be better companies is going to make the industry better as well.

Mark Epperson:

Well, let's see if the industry is better and I think that this is a unique It's unique for insurance, right? Because some of the things that we're doing here, I mean, actually has a, has an effect on the overall public, right? If we can make highways safer, you know, that means somebody else is going to go home that night that maybe wouldn't have, um, that's a driver going home that wouldn't have or somebody, you know, somebody's mother or father or son or daughter. And so, yes, I think there is a, there is. A bit of a bad reputation. Um, but it's more because, you know, you don't, the, the things that make news are, you know, when there is a fatality or something bad that happens, it's not the, it's not, it's the one incident, right? It's not the million incidents where that truck driver did the right thing. Right. Um, it's man, it's a challenging job and people don't give truck drivers enough credit, um, and, and hopefully, you know, I think. I think the industry probably has to do a little bit better job of, you know, talking about the things they're doing from a safety perspective. Um, because it really is like, it, it really does have a big impact. Um, and the industry really is, you know, is, is pretty progressive when it comes to safety, right? That's, that's been kind of the one, that's been one area of focus. You can see a trucking company. You know, we'll go to their biggest competitor and share information on truck on safety, right? And that really doesn't happen in a lot of other industries. And so trucking is unique in that. I think there there probably could be some better better communication to the to the public at large about all the things that go with it.

John Farquhar:

Well, I spent 20 years behind the wheel in the early part of my career. And, um, yeah, there wasn't a lot of driver support back then. You know, they're really lacking in people skills between management and drivers. It was basically just get the job done. Go, go, go, go. We're seeing more of those people skills coming into play. Building those relationships, but we're still not there. You're correct. The industry needs to step up some more and really embrace this program to help improve our drivers, our managers, our everybody that's in this organization. It's a great organization. We just need to do a little better at it. For sure.

Mark Epperson:

I think that you're gonna, I would have to think, you know, it's a, it's a, when you think of trucking, it's a, it's an older industry, right? Yes. And it's one that's changing. The, the equipment that's used is changing quickly. Um, and, and changing faster than certainly the insurance industry is giving a credit score. And, and, um, you know, I think it's one that to be able to attract newer and younger drivers into, into the industry, I think, I think, you know, they're gonna be more accustom. They're going to be more accustomed to being monitored, right? They're being monitored on their phones and they on their phones every single day, and they have been their whole lives, right? So how do we, how do we kind of make that, you know, I think the industry needs to make itself a little bit more attractive to, um, to that next generation that's coming in and the use of technology. Um, and really the use of technology to make everybody else better is a good way to, to help, uh, to help recruit kind of new and different people to the industry that maybe wouldn't, wouldn't look at it otherwise. Correct.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Well, I really think from a technology, uh, point of view, trucking is changing, uh, huge because they are adapting it. What are you seeing out there from a technology point of view? Are trucking companies adapting the new technology as it comes into play?

Mark Epperson:

We are seeing it quite a bit, and uh, kind of break that down in a couple ways. I think from an ELD and a camera perspective. You know, they're becoming almost pervasive at this point. ELDs are obviously there, but really the use of that data I think a lot of trucking companies are getting they're getting better on on using the available platforms that are there and And using the data to help evaluate their drivers, right? So there's a lot of good a lot of good ELD providers out there now that are that are making Telematics data consumable where that wasn't the case Three and four years ago and so We're seeing that quite a bit. Um, you know, the, the, the thing that's changing now, it seems even faster is the technology that's on vehicles. So the ADAS technology, like it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting concept right now. Um, if you think about the typical, you know, kind of, kind of turnover cycle for a trucking company, if they're turning over vehicles, you know, four or five, every four, five, six years, back in the early 2000s. That vehicle was a little bit different. It was just nicer, but it was kind of the same technology. And now it has, you know, 2019, 2020 vehicles and they're adopting some of the updated technology. That's a totally different vehicle from, from a safety and risk perspective. Um, and that's, that's one of the challenges certainly that we're seeing in the insurance market is. Yeah, again, insurance is underwritten on past performance predicting, you know, past performance predicting future performance. You know, if you're looking at a, at an older fleet that has just turned over, that fleet's significantly different from a safety perspective. The profile of that, of that fleet is, is significantly different. If they're updating You know, if they're buying the available technology.

John Farquhar:

Well, and even if you, uh, have a company that changes management or ownership, um, that thought process is going to have an effect, uh, positive or negative in that operation.

Mark Epperson:

Absolutely.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's always management who drives. The different things, um, and they set the expectations. One of the things that, uh, again, I'm going to ask a question. I used to see it when I was working for the insurance company going out, uh, trucking companies used to do a poor job of sales, uh, promoting themselves when they're sitting in front of that safety person, who's going to write a report that's going to have a dramatic effect on your insurance rates. Has that changed out there?

Mark Epperson:

We have seen, we have seen trucking companies get better at it. Right, where they're, they're producing, they're producing presentations coming into renewal. And showing now showing specific data. A lot of it used to be around. Here's the process and you know, here are here's the here's the resume of our safety of our safety team. Now, you know, hey, let's pull a scorecard off of, you know, off of your motive dashboard or your Samsara dashboard. Let's show clips specifically and how we're using it. And so I think, you know, if a, you know, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video in one of those is worth ten thousand, right? Um, and so it's now, you know, I think being able to present, um, present their, their kind of safety strategy, their safety investments, Uh, is now becoming easier. That data is at their, at their fingerprints or at their fingertips, and it's not a process that they can show the outcome of it in the data from, you know, from their tech, from either their telematics or their camera platform.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Sorry, can you repeat that last part?

Mark Epperson:

Oh, sorry about that. I was saying, you know, rather than, than, you know, You know, trying to show safety manuals or binders of information on what they do on a day to day basis. Having the data available now in their ELD platform or their camera platform, they can show the outcome of it, right? And so it's a data driven, um, it's a data, it's a data driven presentation that shows We're doing X and the outcome is Y. Um, and so something, um, something that should be consumable by insurance underwriters.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

I hope all the safety people heard that, that say it again, that they're doing data driven presentations.

Mark Epperson:

Absolutely. So showing specific outcomes from Uh, from their telematics dashboard, showing specific clips and remediation training that they're doing from their inward facing cameras. So, um, rather than, rather than tell somebody what you're doing from a safety perspective, it's a lot easier and a lot more impactful to show them.

John Farquhar:

Yeah. Yeah. Provide those results, you know, nothing worse than, yeah. My SMS scores two years ago changed any, so now it causes a problem because I haven't used the data to tell you that I've gotten better.

Mark Epperson:

Absolutely. And so when you can go in and, you know, I think historically too, it's, You probably wouldn't want to highlight if you have good or bad drivers or maybe Typically on the bad side, but hey now if you can say I know who I know who my 10 worst drivers are And I have a plan around it. That's going to be that's impactful Yes,

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

right and just because they're the 10 worst drivers of your fleet They may be good drivers that you're working on improving and bringing them up To a higher level.

Mark Epperson:

I think the other thing you can do with those drivers too, you know, in, in today's world, you think about historically with a, with a fleet, and we talked about, you know, what the difference in units or vehicles now with the updated technology and what that looks like versus five or six years ago, right? If you think about like the, historically, if a fleet turns over vehicle, who's, who's going to get the newer vehicle? Probably going to be a, it's going to be their better driver. It's going to be one that's experienced, one that's tenured. You probably have to look at that differently. If you're a trucking company to say, Hey, you know, the 10 worst drivers that we just talked about, we just put them in a brand new vehicle that has. Adaptive cruise control has front end collision mitigation, you know, has lane keep assist. So it's, you probably don't want to, you want the drivers that need the most help to have the newer vehicles now. And that's not always been, how do you kind of bubble wrap those drivers as much as you possibly can? And that's something that can be illustrated now to the, to the insurance.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Well, you heard it here first from Mark of Alliant that you want your worst drivers to get the best trucks.

John Farquhar:

It makes sense. Give them the technology.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

It does. It does make sense because of all the technology that's coming on. And, I mean, I was making light of it, but it's absolutely true. That, you know, your best drivers don't need all the technology, but your other drivers can benefit from that technology until they too become one of the best. Mark, give us a hook. Why would, um, just going back because we're running out of time quite quickly. This has been fun. I love talking about technology. Um, why would somebody want to reach out to you? What makes you different than all of the, you know, than the other, than your competitors?

Mark Epperson:

I think for us, we're going to give them, we're going to give them insurance products that align the interests of their, their trucking company and the insurance company. Right. So they're going to have the opportunity when they, when they operate safer, they're going to see, they're going to see premium dividends coming back to their bottom line. Uh, and we're going to help them facilitate that process. And so we're going to, we're going to show them every month how they're performing. We're going to show them who their best drivers are and who their drivers are, and plan to improve that performance over time. And we think, you know, based on our experience, we think that will drive Um, that will drive better outcomes and what is probably their fourth or fifth biggest expense. And so every, every savings that they have in that, in that line item goes directly to the bottom line. And I think we all know that trucking, trucking is not a high margin business, right? And so for every, every, every loss that you, uh, that you eliminate, or that you cause to not happen. Think about how many thousands of miles you now don't have to operate to make up that revenue.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

It's huge. When you don't have crashes, you make more money. That's the bottom line. What do you see, just as a general question, um, in the next 12 months? How do you see the insurance market? Is it hardening, softening, staying the same? What's your prognostication? How is that for a word? I'm glad you laughed, because I've never used that word before.

John Farquhar:

You heard it here. The Dawg has used the prognostication.

Mark Epperson:

That

John Farquhar:

is

Mark Epperson:

way more syllables than I expected on a photocopier.

John Farquhar:

I think he was practicing it three times every minute before the show, Mark. What's your guess

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

for the future?

Mark Epperson:

I will say right now I've been doing this i've been doing this for for 20 years and this is the worst market i've seen Keep thinking it's going to get better. But the the information or the data is not supporting that right now um The insurance industry has lost money 11 of the last 12 years in commercial auto. The one year they made money was 2021 and they just barely lost money in 2020. So it only took a global pandemic to help to make money in this space. And so it's not, the trends are not heading in the right direction. It looks like 2023 is going to be about a 107 percent combined ratio. Insurance companies are losing, you know, seven cents on every dollar. You know and if you if you break that down specifically to trucking that it'll it's it aligns pretty It aligns well with it. It's about a hundred and seven in trucking as well I think eight of the top ten truckers trucking insurance companies saw an increase in loss ratio in 2023 Overall, it's about a 6%. So, you know, I think everything's kind of well documented on what causes that, right? Nuclear verdicts, social inflation, there, there doesn't seem to be any, any, anything that indicates that those trends are going to be getting better in the next 12 months. So I think it's going to continue to be challenging if we're, if we're sitting here on June 24th of next year, I would, I hope I have better news. But right now, the data is not indicating that that will be the case.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Yeah, it's not a funny industry because, as you said, it's such a large cost to the trucking company and to us as a consumer. Everybody who buys anything, it's not pretty at the moment. That's for sure. Mark Epperson from Alliant. Thank you so much. And again, you operate in several, I'd say several, the majority of the States in the United States, and you've got two locations in Canada. So you are available to the people right across North America, um, and a great deal of trucking. Of course, crosses border so they could use your services. I'm sure with your expertise. Last word, Mark.

Mark Epperson:

Come check out our website, uh, align. com. If there's any questions and reach out to us, we're here to help. And John, Chris, appreciate you having me on. It was a pleasure.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1:

Well, thank you. And Mark, the website's down below in the, in the show notes. Your contact info is of course, in the show notes.

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