Why you need commercial auto insurance

Business Auto Policies are so diverse that one can and will protect most exposures if properly written. Note: Like all insurance policies there are exclusions and exceptions within your policy that will need to be looked at in further detail and discussed with an insurance professional. A Michigan business auto policy will cover your Company for liability and no fault, this is simply done by using a symbol 1 or 7,8,9 in the liability section of your commercial auto policy. 

Please be aware that there is a difference in coverage triggers when using these symbols. Using a symbol 1 in your liability section affords automatic liability, hired and non-owned liability for all units owned, hired or non-owned owned or used by the company during the course of the policy period. Yes, you have automatic liability coverage even when you forgot to call to call your agent to add a vehicle. Using symbols 7,8,9 provides you with almost the same benefits as a symbol 1. The only difference is that you must call your agent when you acquire an additional vehicle.

You can’t do that with a personal auto policy!

First, the named insured(s) listed on the declaration page of the business automobile policy is insured for any covered auto.

Second, anyone else while using a covered auto with permission your company owns hires or borrows.

Third, anyone liable for the conduct of an insured but only to the extent of that liability (vicarious liability)

These symbols are very important and should not be taken lightly. Call one of our insurance professionals to discuss your coverage triggers.

What does commercial auto insurance cover?

Please note this exception, workers comp insurance covers employees for any injuries incurred during the course of their employment if an automobile is involved with the injury. See our section on Workers Compensation for further descriptions 

The commercial auto policy will provide your company with the Michigan mandated auto coverages i.e. no-fault coverage Personal Injury Protection and Property Protection. It can provide additional coverages such as Uninsured and Underinsured motorists, Comprehensive, Collision and some fringe coverages like towing, rental reimbursement and hired car physical damage. Your insurance Professional can help you with these coverages.

Commercial liability insurance helps protect you from costs associated with injuries or property damage suffered by others in an accident caused by you or your employee in your insured commercial vehicle.

Limits for Commercial Auto policies are generally written in the form of Combined single limits

Combined Single Limit

When purchasing personal car liability insurance, you will probably notice that your policy will include three limits:

Two bodily injury limits.

Example :

• $20,000 per person.
• $40,000 per accident.

One property damage limit.

• $10,000

However, when shopping for Commercial Auto insurance, you may notice that you will most like get an offer just one liability limit.

This one limit is called a combined single limit. It is often quite large, with some companies’ lowest limits starting at $100,000 and going up to 1 million of dollars.

A combined single limit on a commercial auto insurance policy will cover both bodily injury and property damage liability claims.

Having a combined single limit can be beneficial especially in scenarios where one type of liability claim is much higher than another. For instance, if you cause an accident that causes a considerable amount of damage to someone’s property but no bodily injuries, you will have the entirety of your combined single limit to use towards the property damage.

Michigan Personal Injury Protection (PIP)

This pays for an insured who sustains bodily injury caused by an accident and resulting from the ownership, maintenance or use of an auto as an auto.

There are 5 coverages that are part of the PIP:

1) Medical Expenses

• This takes care of reasonable and necessary medical expenses for the insured’s care, recovery, or rehabilitation.

2) Funeral Expenses

• This will take care of reasonable funeral and burial expenses

3) Work Loss

• This will take care of up to 85% or the insured’s actual loss of income subject to a maximum of $5452 for any 30 day period. This changes every October 1 of each year or if the Michigan Insurance Commissioner deems it necessary to make further changes after that date.

4) Replacement Services

• This provides for reasonable expenses for obtaining services to replace those services the insured would normally have performed without pay for himself, herself or dependents.

5) Survivors loss benefits consisting of Income loss and Replacement services

• This provides up to $5452 in any 30 day period for a deceased insured’s spouse and $20 for replacement services the insured would have performed had the insured not died.

Please note this exception, workers comp insurance covers employees for any injuries incurred during the course of their employment if an automobile is involved with the injury. See our section on Workers Compensation for further descriptions.

Property Protection Insurance

Another State of Michigan mandated coverage is Property Protection Insurance which gives you $1,000,000 in property damage coverage for damage you cause to an inanimate object such as a building, bridge, sign, fence, guardrail and legally parked cars owned by others.

Why you need commercial auto insurance

Business Auto Policies are so diverse that one can and will protect most exposures if properly written. Note: Like all insurance policies there are exclusions and exceptions within your policy that will need to be looked at in further detail and discussed with an insurance professional. A Michigan business auto policy will cover your Company for liability and no fault, this is simply done by using a symbol 1 or 7,8,9 in the liability section of your commercial auto policy. 

Please be aware that there is a difference in coverage triggers when using these symbols. Using a symbol 1 in your liability section affords automatic liability, hired and non-owned liability for all units owned, hired or non-owned owned or used by the company during the course of the policy period. Yes, you have automatic liability coverage even when you forgot to call to call your agent to add a vehicle. Using symbols 7,8,9 provides you with almost the same benefits as a symbol 1. The only difference is that you must call your agent when you acquire an additional vehicle.

You can’t do that with a personal auto policy!

First, the named insured(s) listed on the declaration page of the business automobile policy is insured for any covered auto.

Second, anyone else while using a covered auto with permission your company owns hires or borrows.

Third, anyone liable for the conduct of an insured but only to the extent of that liability (vicarious liability)

These symbols are very important and should not be taken lightly. Call one of our insurance professionals to discuss your coverage triggers.

What does commercial auto insurance cover?

Please note this exception, workers comp insurance covers employees for any injuries incurred during the course of their employment if an automobile is involved with the injury. See our section on Workers Compensation for further descriptions 

The commercial auto policy will provide your company with the Michigan mandated auto coverages i.e. no-fault coverage Personal Injury Protection and Property Protection. It can provide additional coverages such as Uninsured and Underinsured motorists, Comprehensive, Collision and some fringe coverages like towing, rental reimbursement and hired car physical damage. Your insurance Professional can help you with these coverages.

Commercial liability insurance helps protect you from costs associated with injuries or property damage suffered by others in an accident caused by you or your employee in your insured commercial vehicle.

Limits for Commercial Auto policies are generally written in the form of Combined single limits

Combined Single Limit

When purchasing personal car liability insurance, you will probably notice that your policy will include three limits:

Two bodily injury limits.

Example :

• $20,000 per person.
• $40,000 per accident.

One property damage limit.

• $10,000

However, when shopping for Commercial Auto insurance, you may notice that you will most like get an offer just one liability limit.

This one limit is called a combined single limit. It is often quite large, with some companies’ lowest limits starting at $100,000 and going up to 1 million of dollars.

A combined single limit on a commercial auto insurance policy will cover both bodily injury and property damage liability claims.

Having a combined single limit can be beneficial especially in scenarios where one type of liability claim is much higher than another. For instance, if you cause an accident that causes a considerable amount of damage to someone’s property but no bodily injuries, you will have the entirety of your combined single limit to use towards the property damage.

Michigan Personal Injury Protection (PIP)

This pays for an insured who sustains bodily injury caused by an accident and resulting from the ownership, maintenance or use of an auto as an auto.

There are 5 coverages that are part of the PIP:

1) Medical Expenses

• This takes care of reasonable and necessary medical expenses for the insured’s care, recovery, or rehabilitation.

2) Funeral Expenses

• This will take care of reasonable funeral and burial expenses

3) Work Loss

• This will take care of up to 85% or the insured’s actual loss of income subject to a maximum of $5452 for any 30 day period. This changes every October 1 of each year or if the Michigan Insurance Commissioner deems it necessary to make further changes after that date.

4) Replacement Services

• This provides for reasonable expenses for obtaining services to replace those services the insured would normally have performed without pay for himself, herself or dependents.

5) Survivors loss benefits consisting of Income loss and Replacement services

• This provides up to $5452 in any 30 day period for a deceased insured’s spouse and $20 for replacement services the insured would have performed had the insured not died.

Please note this exception, workers comp insurance covers employees for any injuries incurred during the course of their employment if an automobile is involved with the injury. See our section on Workers Compensation for further descriptions.

Property Protection Insurance

Another State of Michigan mandated coverage is Property Protection Insurance which gives you $1,000,000 in property damage coverage for damage you cause to an inanimate object such as a building, bridge, sign, fence, guardrail and legally parked cars owned by others.

What is commercial auto insurance?

There are sometimes misconceptions in the insurance industry on how to insure a business vehicle.

Should one insure a vehicle on a personal auto policy because it may be less expensive or should one purchase a Commercial Automobile Policy?

Let’s start by stating that Personal Auto Policies are designed and tailored for personal use and Business Automobile Policies are designed and tailored to the business and owner’s exposures that come in the form of units owned, leased, hired, borrowed or non-owned. These units can come in all shapes and sizes as long as they are licensed for road use and they are owned or used by the business.

They can be private passenger type, pickups, trailers of all sizes, medium size truck and all the way up to semi tractor and trailers. the business auto policy can even cover specialty type units such as limos and tow trucks.

Why you need commercial auto insurance

Business Auto Policies are so diverse that one can and will protect most exposures if properly written. Note: Like all insurance policies there are exclusions and exceptions within your policy that will need to be looked at in further detail and discussed with an insurance professional. A Michigan business auto policy will cover your Company for liability and no fault, this is simply done by using a symbol 1 or 7,8,9 in the liability section of your commercial auto policy. 

Please be aware that there is a difference in coverage triggers when using these symbols. Using a symbol 1 in your liability section affords automatic liability, hired and non-owned liability for all units owned, hired or non-owned owned or used by the company during the course of the policy period. Yes, you have automatic liability coverage even when you forgot to call to call your agent to add a vehicle. Using symbols 7,8,9 provides you with almost the same benefits as a symbol 1. The only difference is that you must call your agent when you acquire an additional vehicle.

You can’t do that with a personal auto policy!

First, the named insured(s) listed on the declaration page of the business automobile policy is insured for any covered auto.

Second, anyone else while using a covered auto with permission your company owns hires or borrows.

Third, anyone liable for the conduct of an insured but only to the extent of that liability (vicarious liability)

These symbols are very important and should not be taken lightly. Call one of our insurance professionals to discuss your coverage triggers.

What does commercial auto insurance cover?

Please note this exception, workers comp insurance covers employees for any injuries incurred during the course of their employment if an automobile is involved with the injury. See our section on Workers Compensation for further descriptions 

The commercial auto policy will provide your company with the Michigan mandated auto coverages i.e. no-fault coverage Personal Injury Protection and Property Protection. It can provide additional coverages such as Uninsured and Underinsured motorists, Comprehensive, Collision and some fringe coverages like towing, rental reimbursement and hired car physical damage. Your insurance Professional can help you with these coverages.

Commercial liability insurance helps protect you from costs associated with injuries or property damage suffered by others in an accident caused by you or your employee in your insured commercial vehicle.

Limits for Commercial Auto policies are generally written in the form of Combined single limits

Combined Single Limit

When purchasing personal car liability insurance, you will probably notice that your policy will include three limits:

Two bodily injury limits.

Example :

• $20,000 per person.
• $40,000 per accident.

One property damage limit.

• $10,000

However, when shopping for Commercial Auto insurance, you may notice that you will most like get an offer just one liability limit.

This one limit is called a combined single limit. It is often quite large, with some companies’ lowest limits starting at $100,000 and going up to 1 million of dollars.

A combined single limit on a commercial auto insurance policy will cover both bodily injury and property damage liability claims.

Having a combined single limit can be beneficial especially in scenarios where one type of liability claim is much higher than another. For instance, if you cause an accident that causes a considerable amount of damage to someone’s property but no bodily injuries, you will have the entirety of your combined single limit to use towards the property damage.

Michigan Personal Injury Protection (PIP)

This pays for an insured who sustains bodily injury caused by an accident and resulting from the ownership, maintenance or use of an auto as an auto.

There are 5 coverages that are part of the PIP:

1) Medical Expenses

• This takes care of reasonable and necessary medical expenses for the insured’s care, recovery, or rehabilitation.

2) Funeral Expenses

• This will take care of reasonable funeral and burial expenses

3) Work Loss

• This will take care of up to 85% or the insured’s actual loss of income subject to a maximum of $5452 for any 30 day period. This changes every October 1 of each year or if the Michigan Insurance Commissioner deems it necessary to make further changes after that date.

4) Replacement Services

• This provides for reasonable expenses for obtaining services to replace those services the insured would normally have performed without pay for himself, herself or dependents.

5) Survivors loss benefits consisting of Income loss and Replacement services

• This provides up to $5452 in any 30 day period for a deceased insured’s spouse and $20 for replacement services the insured would have performed had the insured not died.

Please note this exception, workers comp insurance covers employees for any injuries incurred during the course of their employment if an automobile is involved with the injury. See our section on Workers Compensation for further descriptions.

Property Protection Insurance

Another State of Michigan mandated coverage is Property Protection Insurance which gives you $1,000,000 in property damage coverage for damage you cause to an inanimate object such as a building, bridge, sign, fence, guardrail and legally parked cars owned by others.