What is commercial auto insurance?
Commercial auto insurance helps protect your business by covering vehicles owned by and used in your business, such as cars, trucks and vans. Travelers offers a broad commercial auto insurance product to ensure that company vehicles, and liability for their use, are properly protected. Commercial auto insurance protects your business against liability for damages caused by accidents involving your business autos and provides certain compensation to occupants injured in accidents. If your business owns vehicles, a commercial auto insurance policy can provide valuable financial protection to you, your business and your employees.
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Travelers umbrella.
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SPEAKER: What is commercial auto insurance? Whether it's delivering goods or meeting with customers, picking up supplies or transporting equipment to a job site, taking your business and your vehicles on the road can be essential to your everyday operations. Commercial auto insurance is designed to cover losses should you or an employee be involved in an accident when driving for work purposes.
You may be thinking you're covered under your personal auto policy, but it's not designed for the type of risks you and your employees can face. In fact, most personal auto policies contain an exclusion for business use. Commercial auto insurance can cover business-owned vehicles, like fleets of vehicles or trucks, and even your own car, as well as those you rent, lease, or borrow. It can also help when employees use their personal vehicles for business.
Commercial auto insurance isn't included in your business owners policy. But you can purchase it separately, and most states require businesses to have a minimum amount of commercial auto insurance. So make sure your business is protected from risks on the road. To get started with commercial auto coverage and other business insurance solutions, contact a Travelers independent agent or visit travelers.com.
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Copyright 2018 The Travelers Indemnity Company. All rights reserved. Travelers and the Travelers Umbrella logo are registered trademarks of The Travelers Indemnity Company in the U.S. and other countries.
Who needs commercial auto insurance?
You need commercial auto insurance if your business owns or uses vehicles for work purposes. Commercial auto insurance is a business insurance policy that protects your business against liability for damages caused by accidents involving your business autos. It provides certain compensation to occupants injured in accidents.
Travelers provides industry-specific coverage for commercial auto and fleet vehicles for certain sectors, such as the public sector and oil and gas. Discover what policy type may be best for your business.
What does commercial auto insurance cover?
Commercial auto insurance can cover liability and physical damages, collision or comprehensive, medical expenses and damages caused by uninsured and underinsured drivers.
Commercial auto insurance policies provide physical damage coverage for vehicles you own, lease, hire or borrow in your business. Commercial auto insurance also provides liability coverage for bodily injury and property damage caused to others by your use of insured business vehicles.
Protect your business on the road
With Travelers, you can expect your commercial auto insurance policy to provide:
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Liability coverage – protection for bodily injury and property damage to others with limits of up to $1 million.
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Physical damage coverage – protects an owned vehicle against accidental loss or damage.
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Collision coverage – covers losses resulting from the collision of your covered vehicle with another object or the overturn of a covered vehicle.
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Comprehensive coverage – covers losses resulting from causes other than a collision or overturn. Collision with an animal or bird is available.
Exclusions apply. Check with your agent.
Additional coverage options
Choose Select Auto CoveragePlus® to include enhancements, such as:
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Auto lease gap coverage – in the event of a total loss, covers the difference between outstanding loan amount and the cash value of the vehicle.
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Employee hired auto coverage – provides hired liability and hired physical damage coverage to employees who rent vehicles in their own name while on company business.
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Blanket additional insured coverage – eliminates the need to list each contracted person or company as an additional insured.
Related products & solutions
Business owner's policy (BOP)
Provides a broad array of standard coverage features specifically designed to meet the property and general liability needs of small commercial customers, with the flexibility to further tailor coverage to meet your specific business needs.
Travelers Roadside Assistance Coverage
The road is an uncertain place. Have peace of mind knowing that help is just a phone call away.
Commercial auto insurance for the public sector
Coverage that helps protect public entities and municipalities such as law enforcement, emergency services and road and street maintenance vehicles.
Commercial trucking insurance: Northland Insurance
For more than 70 years, Northland, a division of Travelers, has provided industry-leading products and services at competitive prices to the trucking industry.
Commercial auto insurance for oil and gas
Protection designed for commercial vehicles and mobile equipment used in the oil and gas industry.
Hired and non-owned auto coverage
Protection that helps protect you, your business and employees when using rented, hired or personally owned non-owned vehicles for work purposes.
Solutions for small businesses
Travelers offers small business solutions to help you protect and grow your business.
Commercial auto frequently asked questions
Travelers has the answers you're looking for.
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Passenger vehicles
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Vans
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Light trucks
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Heavy and extra-heavy duty trucks
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Truck trailers
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Vehicle fleets
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Specialty vehicles
The cost varies. Many factors impact the cost of commercial auto insurance. Things like business and vehicle type, driving history, garaging location(s) and coverages and limits impact the cost.
A fleet is five or more self-propelled autos under one ownership and used for business purposes. A policy with less than five self-propelled autos is a non-fleet policy.
A commercial auto insurance policy protects your business and covers commercially owned vehicles used in business. A personal auto policy covers personally owned vehicles used for personal use.
Physical damage coverage protects your autos against accidental loss or damage, including:
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Collision coverage: Protects against damage and loss in the event of an accident.
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Comprehensive coverage: Protects against damage or loss caused by non-collision, such as weather, but includes hitting an animal or theft.
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Specified causes of loss coverage: Protects against specified peril such as vandalism, hail or fire.
Exclusions apply. Check with your agent.
Yes, if you own, lease, hire or use vehicles for business, you should at least carry liability coverage. Most states require liability coverage for owned autos. If your business moves goods or people across state lines, liability coverage is a federal law. For larger commercial vehicles, you may need commercial truck insurance.
You need commercial auto insurance if:
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You use vehicles for business.
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A vehicle has a commercial license plate or tag.
You need commercial auto insurance if you or your employees use your vehicle as part of your business, such as:
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Driving clients to the airport.
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Traveling to sales calls.
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Taking packages to a shipper.
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Shopping for office supplies.
You may need additional coverage for things like:
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Delivering food, products or publications.
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Acting as a chauffeur, taxi or limo service.
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Transporting equipment and flammable or hazardous material.
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Towing vehicles, moving freight or trucking.
Commercial auto insurance covers you and employees who use your vehicles as part of your business. If your vehicle causes an accident, resulting in injury or damages to property, a party can file a claim and bring a lawsuit against you or the driver. If there is coverage for the claim, our liability insurance pays damages on the claim up to the policy limit. You or your business are responsible for damages above the limit. Liability insurance also covers the costs to defend you or the driver of your vehicle in an accident-related lawsuit, separate from the policy limit.
Common coverages for insured business vehicles include*:
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Collision coverage: Pays for accident-related damage to your vehicle.
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Comprehensive coverage: Pays for damage to your vehicle from non-collision causes such as theft, weather, vandalism or fire.
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Rental reimbursement: Pays in part for a rental vehicle if an accident damages your vehicle.
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Liability coverage: Pays injury and property damages if you’re at fault, including legal expenses.
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Uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage: Pays injury and property damages (where available) for occupants of your vehicle if the accident is caused by an underinsured driver.
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Personal injury protection: Pays medical expenses and income loss for accident-related injury suffered by occupants of your vehicles, regardless of fault.
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Medical payments coverage: Pays medical or funeral expenses for accident-related injury suffered by occupants of your vehicles, regardless of fault.
*Coverage may be available for autos you hire or lease or for non-owned autos (autos used in your business that you don't own, or hire or lease). Some coverages vary by state. If autos are garaged out of state, check with your agent to ensure you have adequate coverage for the states where your insured autos are used.
Personal use of a business vehicle is generally covered by a commercial auto insurance policy. However, certain coverage for family members is often not provided. Check with your agent to determine whether you need additional coverage for family use.
You can purchase commercial auto insurance through an independent insurance agent. Your agent will take time to understand your business operations and vehicles to find optimal coverage at a fair price. Your agent guides you through the claims process when an incident occurs. Using one agent for all your business insurance may help ensure your business has maximum protection and you aren't paying for unnecessary duplicate coverage.
Cost varies. An agent can help you find affordable commercial auto insurance. Factors affecting cost include:
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Business size
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Number and types of vehicles
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Number of employees driving vehicles
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Cost of vehicles hired
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Business and driving risks
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Amount of coverage
Sometimes commercial auto insurance premiums can be deducted when a vehicle is used for business. Check with your tax expert to find out for sure.
You've worked hard to build your business. Learn how Travelers insurance coverages are built to help protect your business.
Commercial property insurance
Travelers commercial property insurance policies are designed to provide coverage for commercial buildings, business personal property and other exposures such as business income and extra expense. Speak with an agent today.
Commercial umbrella and excess liability insurance
Travelers commercial umbrella insurance offers customers protection for large, unexpected events. Learn more about umbrella liability insurance for businesses.
The winning combination
An arcade game manufacturer's sole delivery truck is damaged before a new product launch. The quick response by Travelers gets the vehicle back on the road in time.
This content brought to you by Travelers Travelers_ The Winning Combination
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A Bay Tek Games semi truck drives through a parking lot.
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KEN DEERING: One of our delivery folks was tasked with driving one of our games down to Branson, Missouri. He drove over to the airport and caught the end of the canopy that was overhanging there and ripped the top of the truck right off. The impact of having this vehicle out of service was huge to us.
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Several arcade games. One spins along various ticket amounts, then lands on The Winning Combination.
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Bay Tek Games makes arcade games, family fun entertainment, coin-operated games.
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Race car.
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We were just launching one of our brand-new games called NASCAR Showdown. This is a big game. It's hard to handle. It's very important that we can meet the requirements of the customers and have the games there on time.
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People walk.
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MARIE PATER: After beginning to speak with Ken Deering, I could tell the concern in his voice. He needed this truck back on the road right away. I right away got in touch with the appraiser so he knows what to expect when he comes out.
JERRY CHOSA: Your bed actually allows for [INAUDIBLE] to drive in your truck.
KEN DEERING: Right.
JERRY CHOSA: He was pretty insistent that we try to get it repaired as quick as possible. They only have the one truck and it is a specialty-made box.
KEN DEERING: Without our truck, we were going to be unable to deliver our games and so we were pretty nervous about what our future was going to be.
JERRY CHOSA: I actually found the manufacturer. They removed the box, removed the lift, and then they physically drove the vehicle to Milwaukee, made a whole entire brand-new box at probably a cost that was a little more effective than trying to fix the old box.
KEN DEERING: I was expecting kind of an adversarial type of situation where as the insured, I had to make sure I knew what was in my policy. Instead, I found that I had an advocate for Bay Tek Games in Travelers Insurance.
JERRY CHOSA: Deep down, I know how if I was a claimant or an insured how I would want to be treated by a major insurance company. And I want to make sure that I can do whatever I can to make sure that everything is done right for the insured, myself and Travelers all at the same time.
KEN DEERING: Bay Tek Games is known for their great customer service so I can truly appreciate that Travelers really stepped up. I would absolutely recommend Travelers Insurance to anyone.
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