Non-owned and Hired Auto Insurance
Non-owned and Hired Auto Insurance
Does your law firm need non-owned and hired auto insurance?
Does your law firm have potential automobile loss exposures that you are not aware of? What about the potential loss from individual employees who operate their own personal vehicles for company business?
Many situations present a potential for you to be held accountable for the actions of your employees while they are driving their own vehicles.
- Do administrative employees use their own vehicles to go to the post office or bank on your company’s behalf?
- Do you occasionally send an employee to pick up a visiting client?
- Have you sent employees to pick up lunch, drop off mail or pick up office supplies?
- Have you ever rented a vehicle while on a business trip?
If an employee has an accident under any of these situations, your business can be held accountable and sued for damages. Basic business automobile policies only cover employees while they operate company-owned vehicles to perform company business.
Your best protection: non-owned and hired automobile liability coverage. This type of coverage will kick in if there is an accident and your company is found legally liable. Typically, an employee’s personal automobile insurance will provide primary insurance to both the employee and the business if they use their own vehicle on the company business. However, there is the chance that charges will exceed the employee’s policy limit and would then be passed on to the company. Without non-owned and hired automobile liability coverage, you may be vulnerable to a potentially costly exposure.
Non-owned and hired automobile liability insurance covers bodily injury and property damage caused by a vehicle you hire (including rented or borrowed vehicles) or caused by non-owned vehicles (vehicles owned by others, including vehicles owned by your employees). This coverage is typically added to your business automobile policy; however, it can be added to your general liability policy if you do not have a business automobile policy. It protects your company if it is found legally liable due to an automobile accident that you or your employee has in a hired or non-owned vehicle while on company business. Hired automobile coverage replaces or augments the liability coverage offered by automobile rental agencies.