The objection “we don’t have the resources for a program at this level” is usually the right instinct applied to the wrong comparison. The relevant comparison is not the cost of the Protocol against zero. It is the cost of the Protocol against the full weight of what lands on a company the day a lawsuit is filed: legal fees before trial even begins, document production and discovery, months of staff time consumed by depositions, customers redirecting freight elsewhere while a case drags on, and executives whose names appear in the filing.
The median personal injury and fatality verdict against a trucking company runs well into eight figures. A Framework℠ liability program is not risk management against a number like that. It is the opening position in a negotiation the organization is unlikely to win.
This is also why insuring the exposure is not, by itself, the answer. Insurance and the Protocol are sequential, not interchangeable. The organization that calls its insurance broker first, before establishing a documented Protocol, is buying coverage for a risk it has not yet defined.