Two types of owner-ops

I have six years of experience as a company driver, but I have never done lease purchase or owner-op. I'm considering doing lease-purchase or owner-op.

It's my understanding that there are two general types of owner-ops:
1# Owner-ops that are independent and will haul freight for any shipper.

2# owner-ops that are affiliated with one particular trucking company and only haul freight for that specific trucking company.

Am I correct that both of those two types of owner-ops exist?

Nobody ever told me that there are two types of owner-ops directly, but that is just my impression based on having been in the industry for years and having talked to former co-drivers and trucking students who later became owner-ops and from reading posts of other members of this message board. That is just an impression I pieced together over the years.

I know that an owner-op that is independent has to get authority.

Does an owner-op that is affiliated with one particular trucking company and only hauls freight for that particular trucking company have to get authority to legally do his job?

If you are an owner-op that is affiliated with one particular trucking company that is a mega-carrier and only hauls freight for that specific mega-carrier, do most mega-carriers have some sort of program similar to lease-purchase in which the mega-carrier will deduct money out of your account for a maintenance account and also deduct money out of your account to pay for insurance and Federal highway use tax, etc.?

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P.S. some might look at my profile and wonder how i only have six years experience if I registered here 8 years ago. I stopped doing trucking for a year and a half from 2018-2019 to do HVAC work. Then I returned to trucking in the fall of 2019.

 

My interpretation of your post: If you're an owner-op that is affiliated with one trucking company and you only haul loads for that specific trucking company, you don't have to get authority.

 

I would guess that the owner-ops that are independent would usually make more money than owner-ops that are affiliated with one specific trucking company, but I would also think that being an independent owner-op would entail far more work than being an owner-op that is affiliated with one specific trucking company. Do you people agree with that?

 

Just out of curiosity, why did you use the word leased? To me, lease means renting something. To my knowledge, an owner-op that only hauls loads for one specific trucking company is not renting anything from the company (except maybe the electronic log device).

 

Does a lease operator own the truck? I think that the answer is no, but I would like confirmation.