RXO CEO Drew Wilkerson says recent freight market shifts and regulatory changes have made financial stability and extensive insurance coverage non-negotiable priorities for shippers — and these factors, combined with continuous innovation and deep client relationships, are positioning the company to capture outsized market share in both spot and contract freight.

In an interview with FreightWaves, Wilkerson said RXO's excess liability coverage exceeding $100 million has become a front-line sales advantage as shippers tighten carrier and broker vetting following the Montgomery ruling. The case — in which the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, letting stand a lower court decision that a broker could face a negligence trial over its selection of an unsafe carrier — has reverberated across the logistics industry, pushing risk-management practices to the center of procurement decisions. Financial stability and insurance now open every enterprise customer conversation, a shift he said has accelerated sharply in recent weeks.

"I only know of 2 that have excess liability of $100 million or more" among the top 5 to 10 brokers, Wilkerson said, noting that the field of providers capable of serving large enterprise shippers at scale is narrowing quickly. He emphasized that such coverage thresholds cannot be built overnight by competitors.

"We don't want to just scrape by on this. We don't want to just scrape by for our customers. We want to make sure that we've got more than enough to be there for our customers." — Drew Wilkerson, CEO, RXO

The insurance discussion comes as RXO reported a truckload spot mix of 42% of volume, with spot loads rising 900 basis points sequentially and roughly 1,000 basis points quarter over quarter — the kind of flexibility the company had promised investors since its spin from XPO in 2022. Wilkerson attributed gross profit per load improvement to that spot mix shift, along with a pickup in higher-margin project and mini-bid freight and technology-driven productivity gains.

Truckload volume was up 2% year over year in the second quarter, with low-to-mid single-digit year-over-year growth expected in the third quarter.

On the technology side, RXO rolled out a spot-quote agentic email tool that Wilkerson said enabled employees to process five times the number of orders quarter over quarter. He said the best-performing technology investments meet all three of the company's internal criteria: growing volume, increasing margin, and improving productivity. Separately, an AI agent now reviews installation photos from independent contract drivers in the last-mile business, though Wilkerson noted that tool primarily addresses productivity rather than margin or volume.

Wilkerson said RXO keeps staffing levels calibrated to absorb 15% to 20% volume growth overnight, a posture maintained for the past three years heading into peak season.

He described the current freight recovery as early-stage, pointing to tender rejections running at 14% to 16% on SONAR — well below the 25% to 30% levels seen in a robust upcycle — while demand remains down year over year according to Cass data. The company is now two years into integrating the Coyote acquisition — the former UPS freight brokerage business RXO purchased to roughly double its scale — and is focused entirely on innovation rather than integration, he added.

On food and beverage, Wilkerson pushed back on the notion that the sector is a drag, saying RXO saw year-over-year increases with those customers, though he credited market share gains rather than underlying volume growth. He cited two broader factors weighing on the category: GLP-1 drug adoption — appetite-suppressing medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy that have been linked to reduced consumer food purchases — reducing consumption and deportations shrinking the U.S. consumer base.

RXO's top customers have been with the company an average of 16 years, Wilkerson noted, a relationship depth he said is central to winning outsized spot and project volume as shippers consolidate their provider lists.