You could run as much or little as you wish. If you run your authority you will still need to pay your insurance for the months you are not running or your authority will be revoked. You could voluntarily put your authority on hold, but when those with whom you want to do business check your authority, it shows a questionable track record. My guess is that most insurance companies will not want to insure you for 4 months and then cancel the policy only to have it reinstated 8 months later. When your authority is cancelled you will need to pay a $80 reinstatement fee. My suggestion is to find someone with their own authority who would be willing to allow you to operate under their authority for 4 months rather than going to the expense of getting your authority and only use it for a few months out of the year. Your other alternative would be to bite the bullet and pay your insurance for the entire year even though you won't be running. Unless you are running for some high dollar freight I am not sure it would make good business sense. I don't know what you will pay for insurance but I am sure it would be at least around $8,000 or more per year. That means that if you continue paying your insurance for those 8 months that you will be paying around $5,000 for insurance premiums without any income. That is a lot of money. If you cannot drive for those 8 months, then perhaps you should consider finding a driver to take over while you can't. One other expense to keep in mind are your base plates and 2290. Those expenses also go on whether the truck is running or not.