Cottingham & Butler Transportation Group

Cottingham & Butler Transportation Group Largest Trucking Broker in the U.S.

As a leading insurance provider to the transportation industry, we offer a full range of traditional and non-traditional insurance solutions.

· Team of 300+ industry professionals
· Exclusive broker for 7 trucking captives
· In-house fleet safety & loss prevention programs
· Integrated claims management
· Annual Transportation Summit
· Exclusive Employee Benefits Benchmark Survey

https://www.cottinghambutler.com/industry-experience/transportation/

09/01/2026

That's a wrap! Shoutout to our incredible speakers, sponsors, and attendees for making this year's summit one to remember. 2027 awaits on August 25-26! Secure your spot today at cbsummit.com.

What a way to close out our event – Rorke Denver absolutely crushed it as our keynote! Drawing on lessons from SEAL trai...
08/27/2026

What a way to close out our event – Rorke Denver absolutely crushed it as our keynote! Drawing on lessons from SEAL training grounds and battlefields around the world, Rorke shared the top lessons he learned throughout his journey:

▪️ Constantly improve your position. Move before you have to.

▪️ Find your team's hidden talents. Get to know your people well enough to know what makes them great, and the whole team gets better for it.

▪️ Take risks on your people and push their ideas forward. Rank shouldn't decide whose idea gets heard.

▪️ Calm is contagious. So is panic. Whoever's leading decides which one spreads.

High energy, hard-earned wisdom, and lessons few will ever get the chance to learn firsthand.

08/27/2026

Meet Enzo. He's an Electronic Storage Device K9, and he finds the hidden drives and memory cards that investigators need to build trafficking cases and identify victims. Enzo works with Detective Sciarrone and Derek Benner of Our Rescue, who joined us to walk through how human trafficking and child exploitation operates on U.S. highways and overseas, what the signs look like, and how to report what you see.

Millions of professional drivers are on the road every day, making this industry one of the best chances a victim has. Even just one more person paying attention is a chance at rescue - and we're proud to do our part.

Learn more at ourrescue.org

Greg Feary of Scopelitis Law Firm gave our attendees a current read on nearly every legal issue hitting trucking right n...
08/27/2026

Greg Feary of Scopelitis Law Firm gave our attendees a current read on nearly every legal issue hitting trucking right now - broker liability after Montgomery, contractor status at the state level with New Jersey's rule effective October 1, English proficiency enforcement, chameleon carriers, and where broker transparency is headed.

He also brought us a 'hot off the press' Fifth Circuit ruling most of the industry hasn't caught up to yet. Crane v. Penske put liability on a company several steps removed from the driver, and Greg's perspective is that it may matter more than Montgomery.

Greg has been one of the most trusted voices in transportation law for a long time, and a good friend to Cottingham & Butler. Grateful for his partnership every year.

Staged crashes aren't random. They're organized. Trial attorney Joseph Baiocco broke down how fraud rings run these sche...
08/27/2026

Staged crashes aren't random. They're organized. Trial attorney Joseph Baiocco broke down how fraud rings run these schemes against carriers like a business, and how plaintiff attorneys turn those cases into eight- and nine-figure verdicts in the wrong zip codes.

Joseph, who's spent more than two decades defending these cases, showed which jurisdictions are bleeding carriers dry and the moves that keep them off the next nuclear verdict headline. Attendees left knowing exactly what to watch for.

Get an inside look at Joseph's presentation in our latest blog cb-better.com/targeted

08/27/2026

Bruce Mehlman started day two by telling us how he thinks November midterms will shake out. His take is the House flips and the Senate is close to a coin flip - but he'd give the edge to Republicans holding it, though not by much.

He was upfront that these are predictions and a lot can change between now and November, so he left the room with two things:

▪️ Play the long game and make friends on both sides, because the pendulum always swings back.
▪️ Show up. All trust is local, and they won't help you if they don't know you.

John O'Leary closed Day 1 of the Transportation Summit with a talk that stopped the room. At 9 years old, a fire burned ...
08/26/2026

John O'Leary closed Day 1 of the Transportation Summit with a talk that stopped the room. At 9 years old, a fire burned 100% of his body and doctors gave him a 1% chance of surviving. Everything he's done since comes back to what you do with what happens to you. He calls it going from victim to victor, and says it usually turns on something small - a conversation, a decision, someone showing up for you.

He doesn't frame the fire as something he got past. In his words, "The best of my story today is a direct result of the worst part of my story." Which is to say the hard stretch you're in now is where your best years start.

08/26/2026

Rates are up 35.6% year over year while demand is up only 1.5%, and Dean Croke shared how both of those can be true at once.

A rate move that size normally means freight came roaring back, but that isn't what happened here. ATA tonnage actually fell 1% in July. What's holding rates up is the shrinking supply of trucks, not the amount of freight moving.

The one place demand is genuinely showing up is AI data-center construction, which moves mostly on flatbeds. Housing is going the opposite direction, with builders starting 15% fewer single-family homes than a year ago.

Even so, he expects rates to stay elevated. The drivers leaving over license and enforcement changes aren't coming back, so capacity can't rebuild fast enough to bring them down.

08/26/2026

Derek Barrs, Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, just came off the Summit stage covering fraudulent actors, where policy is heading on autonomous vehicles, and the enforcement issues carriers are dealing with right now.

He didn't hedge on any of it. His message to operators cutting corners: if you're not following the rules, you need to get out of the business.

For the companies in the room who have spent years investing in safety and compliance while watching bad actors undercut them, that's a sign of respect. It's also accountability, coming from someone who sees carriers as partners in getting this right.

All in, all fired up! Mark Roling, Executive Vice President at Cottingham & Butler, just took center stage at this year'...
08/26/2026

All in, all fired up! Mark Roling, Executive Vice President at Cottingham & Butler, just took center stage at this year's . Let's go!

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Dubuque, IA
52001

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Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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