If you had a fifteen thousand dollar antique, would you leave it lying around on the street to get run over by whatever car happened to be passing by? The answer is no, of course not. Yet that’s exactly what many business owners are doing with their company vehicles when they allow them to hit the streets without being covered by a commercial auto insurance policy.
Commercial auto insurance policies differ slightly from personal auto insurance policies in that they’re intended to protect employees and their vehicles when they’re being used for company business during company time. Many business owners, particularly small business owners who don’t have fleets of trucks worth more than most Americans make in a year hitting the highways every day, fall under the spell of the propaganda that states that as long an employee’s car is covered by a personal insurance policy they’ll be protected when they’re out on the road doing company business.
The catch is, auto insurance companies know that the more time cars spend on the road the more likely they are to get into an accident. That equals drivers that are more likely to be filing a claim, and insurance companies don’t make money off of paying out claims. That’s why they ask their drivers to distinguish between whether their vehicle is being used for business or pleasure when they buy their auto insurance policy, and why they’re going to drag their feet about paying claims incurred during company time and renewing personal policies at personal rates after a business-related accident has taken place.
Because neither you nor your employees want the hassle of having to argue with your insurance provider regarding your vehicle’s primary use, and you certainly don’t want to have to pay tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in uninsured damages after an accident has taken place, your best bet is to purchase a commercial auto insurance policy for your business. Through your commercial coverage your employees will be protected when they’re out on the roads doing company business, even when they’re behind the wheel of their own personal vehicle. On top of that, if you choose to purchase company cars for the explicit purpose of doing company business (for example, traveling to homes to do repairs so that heavy and expensive hardware isn’t being moved from vehicle to vehicle) you’ll be protected regardless of which of your employees happens to be driving.
The economy is tough right now, and it may be tempting for business owners to cut corners by eliminating commercial auto insurance policies and using those profits to help their companies stay on top; however, the risk isn’t worth the reward. A single accident without insurance coverage can deal your company a blow it may have a hard time recovering from, particularly if you’re just barely keeping your head above water as it is. Your business deserves better that to have its future left in the hands of luck and fate because you chose not to purchase commercial auto insurance coverage.
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