Imagine living in a roofless home? How would you feel? Constant worries of rain, theft, or security issues? Right!
This is how companies feel who rely on the everyday transportation of goods by trucks but do not have commercial truck insurance.
If you already have a fleet of trucks, lease them, or drive it by yourself, you are aware that having a truck insurance policy is vital both for your own financial and medical security as well as required by state law.
Additionally, the kind of insurance you choose is influenced by a variety of elements, including the sort of goods being transported, the model of the truck, your level of experience, the nature of your business, and your liabilities.
Taking into account all of these aspects, we have listed the top 5 truck insurance policies that can shield you from monetary loss, medical expenses, and legal action in the event of an accident. Depending on the requirements of your business, you can select any of these.
Let’s study each of these coverages in-depth one at a time.
Page Contents
Types Of Commercial Truck Insurances
Primary Liability Insurance
It is the absolute minimum insurance that the state regulations require. Driving without any form of liability coverage can and will lead to extremely high civil penalties.
Such type of insurance guards against any damages to people’s bodies and property in the event that your truck strikes them. Your driver’s illness, truck destruction, and any lawsuits are not covered by this policy outside of third-party coverage.
Furthermore, the FMCSA has established a number of liability standards that are based on the weight and kind of cargo that the vehicle was carrying at the time of the accident.
General Liability Insurance
Every truck business, like any other small business, confronts some specific hazards in addition to the inherent dangers of running a vehicle, including the risk of customer injuries, damage to customer’s property, personal injury, personal damage (not involving the truck) and advertising injury.
These types of risks are covered by general liability insurance, which also pays for all of your legal costs should someone bring a claim against you. As a result, getting this insurance coverage for your trucks that are leased or contract-based is simple.
However, bear in mind that general liability insurance does not offer any coverage for damage to your truck or your cargo. In most cases, trucking companies additionally get physical damage insurance and cargo insurance to safeguard their operations from monetary loss up to a particular level of coverage and limits.
Physical Damage Insurance
Driving a truck involves many hazards, including the possibility of an accident caused by human error or the fury of nature, both of which might harm your property.
It is always advisable for truck owners/operators to get physical damage insurance coverage on their vehicles in such circumstances.
This insurance is not required by law and does not cover goods, the driver’s personal property, or anything that is not permanently attached to the vehicle. Generally, the physical damage liability policy is a combination of two policies – collision and comprehensive.
Collision Insurance
In the event that the truck collides with a car, a fence, or rolls over due to a pothole, it covers the insurance policy holder’s trailer damage.
Comprehensive Insurance
In addition to collisions, other occurrences including theft, fire, natural disasters, vandalism, and animal encounters can also harm your truck. Your property damage is covered by comprehensive insurance in all such cases.
Cargo’s Insurance
Motor truck cargo insurance is another common but one of the most important types of insurance policy.
In the case of lost or damaged cargo being hauled by a for-hire truck driver, the cargo insurance coverage covers the loss or damage.
This type of accident can occur for any reason, including an accident, theft, flood, fire, malfunctioning machinery, or a weight impacting anything.
Additionally, the coverage of your policy may vary based on the type of cargo. For instance, this insurance policy does not cover goods like explosives, antiquities, live animals, shipping containers, liquor, pharmaceuticals, money, or jewelry.
Additionally, while selecting cargo insurance, you can specify a maximum for your coverage and decide the deductibles, the amount you are willing to pay out of your pocket when filing a claim for cargo damage.
Worker’s Compensation
We’ve discussed a lot about third-party liability insurance and personal physical damage insurance, but what about workers’ compensation?
This compensation strategy is therefore applied to the majority of employees or workers during their employment time.
The worker’s compensation insurance policy covers the worker’s legal and medical liability in the event of an accident or death.
According to this policy, the employee and his dependents are responsible for this compensation if a worker sustains an injury, receives a diagnosis of a condition related to their line of work, or has an accident.
By shielding you from potential legal actions, this type of insurance safeguards your company’s reputation.
In What Areas Does Commercial Insurance Not Cover?
There is a specific list of items that the commercial truck insurance policy does not cover in addition to the previously listed coverages. Exclusions are made depending on certain incident kinds and cargo classifications. Which are:
- Intentionally damaging the property with the goal of fraudulently getting insurance benefits can result in severe financial and criminal repercussions.
- Property of others which includes personal and automobile belongings of the third party.
- Any additional damage that goes beyond the insurance coverage.
- Certain cargo types that we’ve already covered in the insurance section for cargo.
Final Words
So, these are the basic truck insurance coverages. In addition to these, additional insurance options are available, including insurance for mechanical breakdown, trailer exchange, or non-trucking liability. Regulations governing business truck insurance also differ from state to state.
In order to find out about any criteria they could have, you should go check their official websites.
Hope this article helped you find the relevant insurance cover for your commercial truck business.
If you still have any questions regarding the insurance covers, their costs, and the risks associated with them, you can freely ask in the comment section. We will be happy to clear your doubts!