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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.

There are many laws on the books that require automobile owners to have personal insurance policies for every automobile parked at home or driven on the streets. Some of these cars might not have been driven for many years because they are collectible antique automobiles and others are used to drive homeowners back and forth to work. The age of the automobile does not exclude the homeowner from obtaining insurance coverage of some sort.

The collectible antique automobiles are usually stored for safekeeping in a secure environment such as the family’s garage and while some homeowners feel that this is adequate protection from many elements, they also realize that is still possible for them to be damaged by some unforeseen circumstances. Some might choose a personal insurance automobile policy that includes this automobile with all of the others and some collectors put these collectibles on a policy separately.

In order to ensure that these automobiles can be repaired correctly if damages ever occur, a homeowner usually get a personal insurance policy on them that will reimburse the owner for the full value of the car as it is valued on the antique automobile collector’s circuit. The settlement amount for this type of personal insurance might be less than the homeowner expected to get but it will be enough if the homeowner has other personal insurance coverage for the home.

There are various deductibles associated with personal insurance policies for automobiles. The highest deductible rate will usually make the personal insurance policies very affordable but this is cold hard cash that must be presented up front before any type of work can be performed. Some automobile shops are willing to take a small payment on the deductible to get work started but the homeowner will have to have the remainder of the deductible paid before they can pick the car up.

Most people feel very confident driving these days because they know they have the right automobile insurance in place. These types of personal insurance policies will not only help to get the automobile repaired but it will also make sure that every passenger involved in a vehicular accident are protected and can get adequate medical care if they need it.

Many of these personal insurance policies will help to pay for hospital bills, medications and physical therapy charges for many weeks down the road and automobile owners will know the monetary amount of coverage that is available for these purposes because they defined the limits when they took out the automobile personal insurance policy.