How to Determine if Your Personal Auto Insurance Covers Business Use? In today’s fast moving and racing world, you have to be extra cautious especially when it comes to road safety. 

And any road accidents happening is just an expensive affair one couldn’t afford. Insurance helps ease this burden a bit.

Some jobs require you to run errands or deliver stuff or generally use vehicles for your business purposes and if that’s the case for you, you might have to recheck your insurance policy.

Most likely your personal auto insurance policy does not cover for your business use. Any standard personal auto policy will exempt any compensation or cover when it causes injury or gets damaged during work use or your business use.

Difference between Personal Auto Insurance and Commercial Auto Insurance 

The line to differentiate between personal auto insurance and commercial auto insurance is often very blurry. 

The main difference between commercial and personal auto insurance is to see who actually is the owner of the vehicle. If you are the one who owns a vehicle then it comes under personal auto insurance and if your business owns a vehicle, it should be covered by commercial auto insurance.

Personal auto insurance provides coverage only to the accidents that take place  while you are driving your vehicle for personal work. 

Which includes going back and forth from work or to travel somewhere unrelated to your job duties. Policies mainly cover for the owner of the vehicle and a few immediate family members.

Does commercial auto insurance cover personal use?

Commercial auto insurance policies are most likely to provide coverage to employees who are provided access to operate your business vehicles.

This policy monetarily supports to compensate any costs of any damage caused by accidents when an employee is driving, even if the vehicle was used for personal reasons. 

Although, certain coverage for family members is often not provided. 

Who needs Commercial Automobile Insurance?

If you have a business that you own, or use your personal vehicles for a business or work, you should atleast have liability coverage. In most states it is even mandatory for owned autos. 

All businesses that work in logistics supply and chain or commute people across state borders are obligated by federal laws to have commercial auto insurance. 

Vehicles that require commercial auto coverage 

• If you use it for a business
• If it carries commercial plate or tag
• If it is registered as commercial vehicle

Adding drivers to your policy

Registering all employees who may know driving allows the insurance carrier to assess the risk. Failing to add a driver could void coverage at claim time.

If you have a business in which driving is one of the main jobs of your employees, be sure to check his driving history when hiring as drivers with a history will make your rates to be higher, and you may think of employing someone with a better record.

How much does commercial auto insurance cost compared to personal auto insurance?

For business usage, owners can expect to pay at least $2,000 a year for a full coverage of commercial auto insurance policy. While, it is very tough to assume the exact amount as how much your commercial auto insurance policy would cost, mainly because there are different types of vehicles and their usage. 

Cost of commercial auto coverage is expectedly more than of a personal car or vehicle insurance policy.

Reason being vehicles used for business purposes such as logistics and supply chain, delivering stuffs, and to carry a variety of load are generally at a higher risk of suffering a damage due to their rigorous operations where as personal vehicles on the road are mostly used for commuting with a very low amount of load in hand when compared.

Commercial Vehicle Insurance: Conclusion

Commercial auto insurance provides coverage for vehicles used for business purposes and also to the people who get injured in accidents with them. 

Different types of policies attract different costs depending upon various different factors including type of usage, type of vehicle and its location to be used. If you find the need to get commercial vehicle coverage then you must consider above mentioned points in order to get the best deal possible.

Best Commercial Auto Insurance Providers

A penny saved is a penny earned. There are plenty of insurance service providers but to get a cost efficient and productive deal you should check out policies from the providers of cheapest car insurance in Illinois.