Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast

Why is Building Relationships with Your Underwriter Key

• John Farquhar & Chris Harris • Season 2 • Episode 105

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Exploring the World of Vivace Insurance: Comprehensive Coverage Solutions with Cordell

In this episode of the Truking Risk and Insurance Podcast, the hosts welcome Cordell from Vivace Insurance to discuss Vivace's unique insurance solutions for the transportation industry. 

Cordell explains the origins of Vivace, the company's approach as a Managing General Agency (MGA), and the broad range of coverages they offer, including land, air, and ocean transportation. The conversation also covers the importance of compliance and safety, challenges within the trucking industry, and strategies to mitigate risks. 

Cordell shares insights on building strong relationships between trucking companies, brokers, and underwriters, as well as practical advice for regulatory compliance and avoiding nuclear verdicts. 

Vivace's ability to ensure comprehensive transportation risks from international origins to final destinations is highlighted, emphasizing its commitment to safety and innovative solutions. The episode concludes with a discussion on the overlap between Vivace's insurance capabilities and the North American logistics network.

00:00 Introduction to the Show
00:06 Meet Cordell from Vivace Insurance
00:48 Understanding Vivace and Its Unique Name
02:36 What is an MGA?
02:58 Vivace's Coverage and Authority
05:17 Regulatory Compliance in Trucking
06:49 The Importance of CSA Scores
11:55 Building Relationships with Underwriters
16:17 Challenges in Regulatory Compliance
19:44 Ideal Clients and Comprehensive Coverage
27:38 Conclusion and Contact Information

Reach out to Cordell:
cordell.fenig@vivaceinsurancepartners.com
https://vivaceinsurancepartners.com/

Your Hosts
John Farquhar
National Risk Services Specialist, Transportation, Gallager GGB
https://www.ajg.com/ca/
M: 437-341-0932
John_Farquhar@ajg.com

Chris Harris
CEO, Safety Dawg Inc.
905 973 7056
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
https://safetydawg.com/

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

And welcome to the show this week. And this week we have a bit of a different angle. Uh, we have Cordell from Vivace Insurance and this insurance broker really offers some different types of coverages. So you gotta stay tuned to figure out if Vivace might be of use to you. Uh, let's get into it with Cordell. Welcome to the Trekking Risk and Insurance Podcast. And that's perfect. Welcome to the show. Now, could you do me a favor? And tell us about, and I'm going to screw the name up of the your company again, because you said it's named after a wine. What's the name of the company?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Vivace.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Vivace. And what's the relationship? Just very quick. What's the relationship between trucking, Vivace, and insurance?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

They're pretty much pretty all different but Vivace stems from I want to say like a wine background where it's has like different notes to it different flavors, different movements within the wine. And it was founded by The founder, Phil Bilney, and he created, he came up with the name and like I said, it has elements of like movement, upbeat notes, and stuff like that, and you could tie that into the transportation industry, because there's always a constant movement of goods. Everyone is very upbeat when it comes to, the working force and all that stuff within the industry. I think it's a great name.

John Farquhar, Gallager GGB:

Yeah, you could take the aspect of the different flavors ties in with the different cultures of different companies within the industry and stuff like that.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Oh, definitely. Yes, you could. So it's a all inclusive name, I want to say. Yeah. And it rolls off the tongue a little bit. Sounds a little fancy.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

I really like it because As you said, there's a lot of movement, like for those people who don't drink a lot of wine, and some people would say I drink too much wine. I agree with you that there's a lot of different aspects of wine and they blend together. That's the same as trucking. There's all kinds of different aspects of trucking tanker and flat deck and all, but everything blends together to get the product to where it's needed. I think it's a great name, Vivace. What is Vivace? What are you guys doing?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Oh, so we are a startup MGA and we're in Okay,

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Hold it. What's an MGA?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

It's a Managering, Actually, I gotta look this up real quick, so

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

What is it, John? An MGA Managing General Agency.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah, Managing General Agency. And basically we are Oh, I lost you real quick. We are a start up company and, We have the authority to write insurance policies for ocean, land, and air transportation, and evaluate the risks of the goods not just within the U. S., but also within worldwide as well.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Yeah, and for our viewers and listeners, an MGA is almost the same as an insurance company. As you just heard Cordell say, they can, they actually under, they actually evaluate the risk and then you can bind it without any further without going higher. Correct?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Correct. Yes.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Yeah. So it's virtually the same as an insurance company.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Pretty much. Yeah. Same as insurance company. And we have certain amount of authority that we operate within anything. Above that, we have to do a little creative thinking and, to get the job done, but it usually works out.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Yeah, and what I found interesting when I was doing some research, and you just said it, you're doing land, air and ocean. I don't think, John, I don't think we've had a Anybody who writes ocean risk before.

John Farquhar, Gallager GGB:

Not that I'm aware of up here in Canada anyway, from an MGA approach.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, there should be some good ports around Canada, for shipments that are coming in and out. So I'm not

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

surprised. Halifax is one of the deeper ports. We can, Halifax, I know, can take the big ships. I think there's only four ports in North America that can take that size of ship, and Halifax is one, and the other three are in the U. S., if I remember.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah the U. S. definitely has a couple top five ports I would say. You have the New York port, you have the Long Beach port Gulf of Mexico. Stuff like that.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Yeah, L. A. of course.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

L. A. is a big one.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Shoot. I've actually been to not as a truck driver, but I was hopping on a a cruise and so the cruise port was out of L. A. and I got, damn, that's a big port.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Constant movement, just like Favaci. Yeah, see.. Chris Harris, Safety Dawg: And what's aspects that you would say are critical for trucking specifically? I would say that would involve the compliance, safety and accountability scores, the CSA . And there's. I want to say seven factors within that. And within those seven factors, this CSA scores are assigned by the FMCSA, which is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. And to tell you the truth, the lower the the score is on the scale of one to a hundred, the better. And this is something underwriters definitely take a look at just to evaluate the risk as a whole. And

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Damn important when it comes to

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah, definitely. Make sure everyone's doing their part. Everything's in check and, we want to promote safety at the end of the day, no matter, how big the shipment is or how important it is. Everyone's got to be safe on job, in my opinion. Agreed.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Trucking is in the top 10. Um, it's in the top 10 high risk professions. That's what I wanted to say. Last time I looked at it, it was number six. Number six. Yeah. Only things like roofers and high steel workers and things were. had a more dangerous occupation than trucking. And yet if you ask a truck driver, they don't think it's dangerous at all. But, it is in the top six. And so the CSA or SMS scores, I know insurers rely on as a, as one of the marking points, it's not the only thing, but it sure has an impact on your policy rates.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Definitely. Yep. It's definitely a big factor. It's one of the first things I would like to see, when I open up a file and dig, dive in and see what I could find and how to underwrite it the best of my ability. So it's definitely a key point. And it's

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

What else is there? CSA SMS is one thing. What else are you looking at when you're evaluating? A trucking risk. What are you looking at?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

I'm also looking at the DOT ratings as well and their audits. I just want to make sure, that's in line with the CSA. And we all know like the DOT audits are, triggered by serious accidents or like high CSA scores, violations, and even Randomly chosen by audits and, we just want to make sure that's in line with the CSA as well and my findings. So that's very important. And also another big 1 for underwriters. In my opinion is you're operating authority within the FMCSA. This is a big 1. I've found throughout my career that There are agencies that think they are licensed for a certain type of goods or, operation and they find out that they're not and they're in violation or policy has to get canceled, if it was grossly underwritten or there was some negligence there. So that one's a big one. You want to make sure you're operating the proper authority as a property broker, freight forwarder. And also do you have the proper bonds in place, your BMC 91, which is more of I want to say, intrastate, within the States and your BMC 91X, which is more of the interstate between the States and, want to make sure you have those in place and you're doing your part to to make sure everything is. Mhm.

John Farquhar, Gallager GGB:

And it's good that the insurance side knows this. They need to know this because they're unfortunately, it is fairly easy to get into the trucking industry, and get your operating authority. And it's not, once you've got your operating authority, it's not the End all be all that says, Hey, now I can go haul anything and everything I want because there's a lot of regulations around certain commodities. And there are requirements to have certain insurance thresholds in place with specific commodities, dangerous goods being one dangerous goods in a van versus bulk dangerous goods in a tanker or household goods or radioactive materials. And, there's all these different things. It's good that you're knowing this and understanding this to catch this and look for these things because you don't want to have to deal with a motor carrier that didn't know it themselves.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Exactly. The last thing we want to do is a customer like, Oh, we can't, Not only can't we insure you because X, Y, and Z, but you don't know how to operate properly, and I think if insurance companies took that extra step of just hey, even though you don't have these in place right now, we'll work with you. We'll put it as a subjectivity. We'll give you some ample time to Get your proper filings in place, because it's a good educational piece all around and it just keeps the industry a lot tighter and so everyone knows what they need to do, in my opinion. Yep. Yeah. And I don't want to make it seem like, underwriters are just gonna nitpick and find every little thing that's wrong, but, it's more of us trying to do our part to also educate, the trucking agency as well, because like you said, it's very easy to get into this business. Even on a property broker level, where you don't need any equipment at all. You're just operating off a computer in a basement, arranging shipment.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

And there's a lot more people doing that. It seems like they perceive it as being. Easy money and so easy to start the company and no risk. I got news for them. There's It's not that easy. That's why Yeah It is difficult but getting back to trucking. There's a especially in the u. s As we say sometimes u. s is fairly litigious Especially when it comes to nuclear verdicts, I mean my god, you're Here in Canada, we have different insurance rules. Therefore, we don't have these huge verdicts that we have in the states But if you truck in the states you're subject to them So how would you what piece of advice would you give to a trucking company owner to say? Hey, this is the Best way, or one way at least, to avoid a nuclear verdict?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Um, I personally would say just talk to your underwriter, I would say. Talk, talk to insurance companies because they definitely have some good information on that as well. I haven't really, I can't really speak on that part. I don't have that much experience when it comes to nuclear verdicts.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Verticals. But what you said is huge. Talk to your underwriters.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Just to add on that. I think just talk to your underwriters. I think a lot of companies, agencies, they want to put their best foot forward, which is good. You want Be out and open on your application, but there's also questions where it's like how will this affect me in a claim? How does this affect the industry with these new regulations and stuff like that? But it's good to have that relationship with your underwriter and broker as well. So you're always informed and it's a well oiled machine on all parts.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

And I think that's one aspect that many trucking companies forget, is that they can build a relationship with the broker, that's really important, but also with the underwriter, so that you are not just a policy number, but when the underwriter comes to understanding your account, because of the relationship and the conversations you've had with the underwriter, You are much more than just a policy member. I think that's great.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah, I think that's huge. And you've also built, somewhat of a personal relationship sometimes and you, sometimes your things are more on top of the list than others. Depending on that relationship with the underwriter and, once you have that working relationship and what the underwriter is going to ask in advance or what they like, what they don't like When it comes to renewals and stuff like that, it's an easier process on the next go around.

John Farquhar, Gallager GGB:

I was going to say, Chris and I have been in the insurance world a long time here now, and we've both seen companies who feel that their underwriters are untouchable, and they just don't feel that they could reach out and build that relationship, right? Whereas if they could, they would have a better understanding of certain aspects of their business are a higher risk than others. Yeah, they can put controls in place to help mitigate or reduce that risk from becoming a problem. And by having a conversation with your underwriter so that you can help put the relationship at ease and be able to show, Hey, excellent information. Thank you. I'm going to go away. I'm going to work on that. I'm going to put some programs in place, some training in place, and then I'm going to come back and share it with you to now give the underwriter confidence that the motor carrier is doing exactly what they said. And that just helps create synergy. Between the two of you and then you bring the broker in there and all of a sudden you've got a happy relationship. Just like Chris and I, we're happy all the time. It really can help cement and educate everybody in that in that circle.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah. And Johnny you're terrific. You're totally right on that. And, can't speak for all underwriters, but, some, sometimes we do get a little egotistic cause we, we do have the power of the pen, and we are the decision maker and, we want things our way, but, as you can tell, I'm a more of a, on the younger side and want to break that mold and just have that relation, more of a relationship with My clients and brokers and I think that I'll go a long way and once again that kind of ties into the Vivace name It's more upbeat Everyone is moving together as one and you know creating quote unquote, you know that perfect wine taste and that perfect taste within that within the industry in my opinion

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

It needs to be the relationship with your pallet is the same as the relationship trucking company with the pallet writer. No pun intended with the pallet. It's got to be smooth. Exactly. Yeah. Just tying it back to Vivace, what the hell. Hey, when Crudel, I was looking over at my bookshelf to see if I could grab a copy of the Federal Motor Carrier. Safety Regulations, that green book. I actually don't think I own one anymore, because of course it's online, but what do you think about regulations and compliance in the trucking industry? What's the most challenging part for trucking companies and regulations?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

That's a lot of factors and I'd say like one of the most challenging factors is the HOS management, which is the hours of service. Which includes the complexity of managing multiple driver schedules while maintaining efficiency. I think this is a big one. A lot of trucking agencies want to, maximize, the profits as much as you can and the drivers, but that's hard to do with other factors That you have on the day to day basis. So I think that's a challenge dealing with unexpected delays, weathers and traffic that impact driving hours. I think that's a challenge as well. Dealing with climate change and you don't know. What the road or the weather is going to present sometimes might have to go a different route and, quote unquote, that might affect your policy or not. But once again, pick up the phone, call your broker, call the underwriter, explain the situation and let's work together and see how we could get the shipment back on the road the best way we can.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

And today we're recording this in what is probably one of the coldest certainly where I am, it's coldest day of the year so far. 11 degrees Fahrenheit, Chicago is at nine degrees. That's chilly and trucks break down trucks run into weather related conditions. Trucks don't start. Yeah, there could be a lot of different things. And there may even be a snowstorm. You're talking about re routing. Does Vivace take into account where the companies go? A lot of insurance companies like to get the, um, the EFTA reports. To see how many miles in each jurisdiction. Do you do the same?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Not for our program. We don't do the IFTAs. Um, that, that's a different program. I want to say more of like towards a cargo hauler program for us. But When it comes to just the transportation of goods and and you have your strict liability, we don't really look at the IFTAs too much, but it's still good information, just to see the mileage, is it more of a long haul, is it more of a medium haul, is it more of a short haul, and stuff like that, in my opinion. And it just gives underwriters better information of okay what's What's the routine here, mainly?

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Johnny and I know that there's certain jurisdictions in the U. S. Like Cook County, just outside of Chicago, is notorious for Outlandish not claims, but outlandish

John Farquhar, Gallager GGB:

payouts. Rewards, yeah.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Thanks, John. I couldn't think of the damn word. But are certain jurisdictions though in the U. S. That will pay out more than other jurisdictions. Oh, yeah. Montana is a little more calm when it's compared to Chicago, for example, or Texas, I think, Texas, New York, Florida, damn, billion dollar claim in Florida, paid out a couple of years back. Yeah. Yeah.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

And it usually involves with those Bigger, metropolitan areas, where it's more condensed, there's more risk of an accident to happen, regardless if it's pertaining to the cargo or, unfortunately, another car,

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

what type of risk are you looking for specifically? Like when you say you insure trucking, you insure ocean freight and all that. What is it that you would like, what's your ideal client look like?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

My ideal client is basically, pretty generic, but the safest risk, everyone wants that. Are you transporting new general merchandise that is just basic stuff, you're going point A to point B, maybe less than 300 miles, and. This is what you do on a daily basis, you're in contact with more of a direct shipper that does this on a daily basis and he's contracted your trucking company and you guys have that relationship and it's warehouse to the final destination and back. And that's more of the safer risk not, I like to see that, but I'm more of a, on the creative mindset where it's let's help you with something a little bit more challenging in my view, which is what I like, let's see where this ocean shipment is going to take you from, you know, from point A to point B, and now you've got to contract a trucking agency and merge the two transportations, together so it could reach its final destination.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Yeah, so your possible client might be arranging the shipment from Japan, for example, container freight all the way over to the U. S., offloaded onto a truck, and then delivered to its final destination.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a risk that we we love, we don't shy away from. And it's a constant movement and, everyone is happy at the day, and everyone needs that, that type of insurance instead of just inland transit all the time, people think of insurance as just, Oh, it's just, inland transit on a truck, we're, Where'd those goods come from? Those goods probably came from overseas and then onto a truck and now the truck's onto its final destination. So that those are the moving parts that we look at.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Yeah, absolutely. And that's huge. You look at any container port and there are thousands of containers at any point in each port and there's multiple ports in North America because a lot of stuff hits Vancouver or Halifax. And then we truck it, Canadians truck it to the south below the 49th parallel. It's just, there's a lot of movement there and I'm not aware that there's a huge number of companies looking to sh To insure a product from the beginning of its trip all the way through to the final stages of it.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

Yeah, that's not a lot of companies do that and then you could take it a step further and there's insurance policies called stock put throughs where not only we're taking it from an ocean shipment all the way to the final destination to the warehouse, but also You know, stock put through is we're taking, we're ensuring the raw material itself. Just say like coal, refining it, gas, oil and gas as well. And going through those steps of, um, what you call upstream, midstream and downstream of the oil refinery process. And until it's a final product and ready to be sold onto the barrels and shipped out. So those are also insured insurance products that insurance carriers also offer as well.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Cool. I'm not very well versed in ocean freight. My background is all trucking. We move containers, but damn, I didn't have to move it from Japan over here or Korea or where China, wherever. What are some of the practical implementation approaches that you might find for regulatory compliance and strategies like that? How in the hell are we going to? Trucking companies, it's hard. You mentioned HOS as one of the things. John and I have seen the HOS compliance. The number of violations now have shrunk. But the scores remain high because it's nothing but a comparison. How do you see all these regulations? What's the greatest challenge in meeting these things?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

The greatest challenge is just comparing them to the other like seven basic CSAs in my opinion, and that's Basically, the unsafe driving the driver fitness, the controlled substance and alcohol violations the crash indicators history, and stuff like that. That's like a big challenge, and Also, just prioritizing areas of immediate attention for the risk levels, just as such as challenges and regulations, natural disasters, and a big one is shortage of skilled workers and drivers. There's really not that much out there. And, the last thing you want to do is hire an experienced driver and have a violation and stuff like that. And it just, one, one bad apple could ruin your policy and kind of your, not only that, like your workflow within the company, I assume Johnny. Sure. I dunno if you could share on that.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Go ahead Johnny. You're gonna say

John Farquhar, Gallager GGB:

I was gonna say most definitely it, there's no I in team as we know, but we also know that if we don't control things as we should, it, it doesn't take much for one driver. To take down a whole corporation, due to negligent control. Like Chris was saying earlier, nuclear verdicts all it takes is one driver, bad behavior behind the wheel, make a bad decision lack of training, inexperience is huge right now. And it, before you know it you're now seeing that you have to pay out this large reward for something that you thought, I didn't think it was that bad. But it's companies need to really pay attention. And one of their biggest things is their people. You need to pay attention to your people, who you're hiring.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

You really need to be training those people too. I'm involved in a court case right now where the new hires, they both testified that basically they were brought on board and given the keys to the truck. I'm sure as an underwriter, that's not what you wanted to hear.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

No. And that's why as an underwriter it is important. And I do tend to ask Hey, is there like a training procedure in place? Do you guys have that? Can you send me a copy? Just so I know how serious is this agency? Do they, is this just, I don't like to say this, is this kind of a cash grab? Is, do you think it's just, it's just so transactional for you that you're just making money and not really? Doing your end of the, your part of just making sure you're in compliance and making sure everyone's safe once again within the industry.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Hey Cornell from Vivace. Wine thanks. I gotta, I live in southern Ontario. We're 30 minutes away. We have 120 or so wineries. A lot of people don't think of Ontario as having a lot of wine. Think of California like where you are. But believe it or not, Ontario has hundreds of wineries. And not 30 minutes away is the first one. And there's over, well over a hundred. Within a 40 minute drive of my house of different wineries.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

So you've got some shipments of wine then, every now and then, that you see?

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Oh yeah. There are trucking companies that do nothing but move wine. Because there's that many. And out near Johnny's place, John lives an hour or so west of me. And there's a lot of wineries there on the north shore of Lake Erie, right? And of course, now we're way off topic, but I love wine. But hey, I just want to say, Cordell, thanks for coming on to the show. It's been great. And again, for our viewers and listeners Vivace, they are looking or writing ocean transport, logistics, and transportation. Those are the three categories. That they're actively looking for business, and Cordell's contact info is down in the show notes. Reach out to Cordell. Hey, can you write Canadian, or is it strictly American?

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

No, we could write in Canada as well. Um, Canada is a strong partner within the U. S. We work together as best as we can. And the FMCSA, includes Canada as well.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Yep.

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

In their guidelines and compliances. Yeah we include Canada as well. And I know Canada has their own bonds. Thanks. And that's something that we could help educate our clients on obtaining as well.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

The majority of our listeners and viewers are American. But we have a, it's about 30 to 40% Of our viewers are Canadian as well, so I just wanted to make sure the Canadians knew that they could reach out to Cardell as well to see if there's any services that may be available. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Yes, thank you. Tongue tied there. Thanks, Cardell. You're

Cordell Fenig, Vivace Insurance Partners:

welcome. Thank you so much for having me, and I'm looking forward for the next one, hopefully in the near future. Cool.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg:

Perfect.

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