We work with lots of contractors, and one common trend we see is pickup trucks.
Lots and Lots of pickup trucks.
Now pickup trucks are great but they can be a bit tricky to insure.
The line between business use and personal use are very blurry to say the least.
Especially with new pickups practically being a luxury car with a pickup bed. (side note any readers really love me a F250 Platinum Diesel is pretty high on my wish list)
Back to the matter at hand,
If you own a pickup and it’s used for everything from date night to the lumber yard and everything in between your truck should probably insured with a commercial auto policy not your personal auto policy.
With that being the case for 99.9% of contractors, let’s get into a few reasons why your truck belongs on a commercial auto insurance policy.
1. The Business Use Exclusion
The biggest reason is personal auto policies typically have a business use exclusion! This creates a huge coverage gap for you and your business. A commercial auto policy by design does not have this exclusion and by default covers the business entity.
2. Non-Household Resident Exclusion
Another important reason, is some personal auto policies exclude non-household residents from coverage, imagine your toss your keys to your helper who totals your truck while running to the deli? If that accident isn’t covered can you replace your truck out of pocket? Probably not.
3. Increased Liability Limits
A personal auto policy typically has maximum limits of $500,000, while a commercial auto policy is typically $1,000,000 in liability coverage.
Additionally, an commercial umbrella or excess liability policy can be added to increase the limits far higher.
4. Snow Plowing Exclusion
IF you do any snow plowing work, a commercial auto policy is a must. The vast majority of personal auto policies will exclude any accidents involving snow plowing jobs.
*However if you only plow your own property you can probably get away without a commercial auto.
5. Tax Deductible
One benefit of commercial auto insurance over personal auto insurance is the cost is tax deductible. Another benefit is the ability to add hired and non-owned auto liability for those instances where an employee is driving their personal vehicle onto a job-site or similar, it provides the company liability from those incidents.
Bottom Line
If there is any confusion about how your pickup truck is being used you owe it to yourself to have a conversation about this. The last thing you want is to leave your $50,000+ pickup truck with questionable insurance coverage.
[inbound_button font_size=”30″ color=”#2ea3f2″ text_color=”#ffffff” icon=”” url=”https://www.grbminc.com/step-1″ width=”100%” target=”_self”]Get A Quote Now[/inbound_button]
