James B. Gattoni
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets
A couple of items here. I mean, there's a lot of things that focus in here. And I would say that when you have increased demands and you've got some tight capacity, you are going to basically pay a little bit more for that brokered truck. Now all that being said, we've done a pretty good job on BCO loadings, and our system benefits in that environment. We might pay a little bit more for that broker truck, but when we get that price increase, which we will get, what happens is that from the fixed margin, as Joe mentioned, that really benefits Landstar. And I would say that you're going to start to see that progress as you move through the year. At first, when the stabilizes -- I mean, it depends on the volume and whatnot, how much composition that you have. But what we look at is, okay, get that price increase. Because that price increase is going to basically resolve some of that pressure. But I would anticipate that you're probably going to see some pressure, assuming demand stays where it is, on the variable piece. The other thing as far as the fourth quarter, which I think is very important, and Jim mentioned it in his -- as it relates to the results and pushing it down to the bottom line, insurance and claims expense in 2013 was higher than we would have anticipated. And clearly, when I get my mid-quarter update in December, the insurance costs were even higher than we anticipated then. And that really impacted, I think why you didn't see the full benefit of some of the numbers in the fourth quarter. I don't anticipate that we're going to run 4% of BCO revenue in 2014. And you go back to that historical 5-year rate that Jim refers to at 3.3, that's picking up some pretty good margin there. Now obviously, not good you've got to be safe and we've also talked about the number of cases out there of large value, and that's dwindling. So we feel comfortable with that, but you never know with that line item. And the weather has not been good, but so far in January, we've been okay. So that's about the best I can get. And let's see, someone else want to add anything on that?