Lisa Arseneau – Vice President - Lisa began her career in the transportation industry in 1986, joining Central Ontario Appraisers Inc. Her responsibilities included the day to day operation from scheduling appraisals to handling total loss negotiations. She was involved with many industry professionals including adjusters, claims examiners, insurers and insureds. Lisa had 5 years behind her when she made the transition to the Insurance Company side of the industry. Markel Insurance Company of Canada (Northbridge Insurance) is one of Canada’s largest transportation insurers. While there, Lisa developed an extensive network of industry related contacts that are still a very important part of her business life today. Her duties included underwriting, claims and information technology which allowed her to obtain knowledge of just about every aspect of the transportation industry. In 1997 Lisa decided it was time to attack the industry from yet another angle and became an insurance broker. Lisa was hired by a large Ontario brokerage and was put in charge of creating a new Transportation Department. During the next two years, she was able to connect more directly with the transportation companies and continued to develop and maintain her industry contacts. Since then she has worked as an insurance broker solely in the trucking and transportation segment. Currently in her nineteenth year as a Broker, with H L Staebler Insurance Brokers, she is as passionate today as she was the first day she started. Lisa belongs to several trucking industry associations and is active in all of them, staying current on industry trends, etc. She specializes in safety & compliance areas such as mock audits, company structuring and analysis and is very instrumental in bringing the industry to her clients.

Columnists,Lisa Arseneau |
March 19, 2019

While I enjoy writing this blog, there are times when I struggle to choose interesting and engaging subject matter.  Not this time!  The trucking insurance industry is one like I have never seen in my 32 year career.  It’s a combination of many things, it’s rapid growth within a new company without strong foundations in safety & compliance; it’s unreported units to their insurer being dispatched; it’s unqualified drivers being put behind the wheel; it’s unethical advice being given to company owners who are blindly following it.  Insurers have had enough.  They have insured these risks on trust and belief that they are being given true information.  When they find the information to be untrue and abusive, they have no choice but to make underwriting rule changes and decisions that are needed to be made.

Unfortunately, the new rules and underwriting decisions put good and honest operators in a pool that make it very difficult to operate.  The good operators will succeed and they will operate, however with much more difficulty and costly time and effort.  Just to be clear, this article is about what we call non-fleet operators.  The new rules and business decisions focus on less than fleet operations, where the rules are strictly enforced.  The reason for this is because, traditionally, less than fleet operators will not have a safety & compliance manager, or budget for one, and therefore the insurer does not have the same confidence that they have with a fleet that has one.

This will severely change the landscape of trucking insurance for some time.  And it should.  Our new normal will look nothing like we have ever seen.  As I said, the good operators will survive and succeed and the ones that follow the practices mentioned above will cease to have insurance and therefore cease to exist.  Unfortunately, that is how it will look on paper.  As recent as last night, CTV aired an expose on falsified liability slips being sold for cash. I believe this practice will become more prevalent and will put all of us at risk.  It will take much diligence from all of us to not only look for these operators, but to report them to the industry bodies and even police if necessary.

I have been saying, for some time, that our industry is unhealthy.  Well, now it’s downright terminal and we need to do everything we can educate, advocate and protect it as best we can.

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Lisa Arseneau – Vice President - Lisa began her career in the transportation industry in 1986, joining Central Ontario Appraisers Inc. Her responsibilities included the day to day operation from scheduling appraisals to handling total loss negotiations. She was involved with many industry professionals including adjusters, claims examiners, insurers and insureds. Lisa had 5 years behind her when she made the transition to the Insurance Company side of the industry. Markel Insurance Company of Canada (Northbridge Insurance) is one of Canada’s largest transportation insurers. While there, Lisa developed an extensive network of industry related contacts that are still a very important part of her business life today. Her duties included underwriting, claims and information technology which allowed her to obtain knowledge of just about every aspect of the transportation industry. In 1997 Lisa decided it was time to attack the industry from yet another angle and became an insurance broker. Lisa was hired by a large Ontario brokerage and was put in charge of creating a new Transportation Department. During the next two years, she was able to connect more directly with the transportation companies and continued to develop and maintain her industry contacts. Since then she has worked as an insurance broker solely in the trucking and transportation segment. Currently in her nineteenth year as a Broker, with H L Staebler Insurance Brokers, she is as passionate today as she was the first day she started. Lisa belongs to several trucking industry associations and is active in all of them, staying current on industry trends, etc. She specializes in safety & compliance areas such as mock audits, company structuring and analysis and is very instrumental in bringing the industry to her clients.