What Does Commercial Truck Insurance Cover?

Which Kind of Commercial Trucks Are Covered under Commercial Truck Insurance?

1. There are many different types of commercial trucks, including tractor-trailers, dump trucks, tow trucks, straight trucks and pickup trucks. Commercial truck insurance covers all of these. This type of insurance can be purchased by owner-operators for a single truck or for companies that need to insure an entire fleet of trucks. No matter which one of these categories that you fall into, commercial truck insurance is required in order to drive a commercial truck.

Basic Provided Coverages

2. Commercial truck insurance is a lot like personal automobile coverage, it provides standard protections such as comprehensive and collision, general liability, uninsured/underinsured motorist protection and medical payments. Unlike personal auto insurance you usually can get commercial auto insurance by providing less information than you would have to provide for a personal auto policy.

Specialized Coverages for Commercial Trucks

3. Commercial truck insurance usually includes specialized business-related coverages that further protect you and your business auto. These coverages are usually more specialized than what a standard policy provides. Motor truck cargo is one type of extra coverage which affords protection against lost, stolen or damaged cargo in transit. Motor truck cargo insurance can also offer protection against terrorism. Trailer Interchange coverage protects the insured against losses to non-owned trailers being pulled by their insured trucks. Non-trucking (bobtail) liability offers protection to owner-operators who are permanently leased to an ICC-regulated carrier. This provides coverage for trucks when not being used directly for business purposes, such as when a truck is bobtailing and goes to a truck wash or to a shop for repairs. There are lots of different types of coverage that you can get with your commercial auto insurance. Make sure to always ask your insurance agent if you don't understand any part of the coverage on your policy. Often different insurance companies will cover different things under the same type of insurance coverage.

Other Insurance Services

4. Many insurers, and their agents, provide assistance with ICC (Interstate Operating Authority) compliance and filings. In California for example, insurance companies can also do an electronic filing which is required by the DMV in order to issue a MCP or motor carrier permit. This filing from the insurance company is called the MCP65 filing. ICC or MCP65 filings are usually done electronically these days and can be done same day.

Choosing the Right Commercial Truck Insurance

Keeping your truck safe is one of the first things that a truck driver or owner has to make sure to do; this includes but is not limited to providing a safeguard if the truck is hijacked or stolen, if there is an accident or the truck simply fail to function. Commercial truck insurance policies often deal with all these situations and much more, to the benefit and preference of the truck owners and runners.

Of course, it is not easy for a trucker to get the right commercial truck insurance. Therefore the trucker whether it is the owner of the rig or just the overseeing boss, to do a proper search and investigation to what type of commercial truck insurance is what will suit them in terms of adequately protecting the truck as a machine, the driver as well as the different cargo that they constantly move.

Naturally, there is a pre-set guidance in terms of commercial truck insurance policies; this means that as a general rule, such policies have a standard coverage, cost and liability to the extent of what they cover in these three parts of the truck: machine, human and cargo.

However, when the truck has to deal with taking cargo to remote or difficult to access areas such as the truckers that have to travel and take special deliveries in Alaska, the commercial truck insurance policies have to be varied and modified accordingly.

This is the main reason why it is so important for the truck owner or runner to do a proper research and make sure that the commercial truck insurance policy will adhere and cover all the elements and events that are important to him or that might put at risk the normal development of the unit.

If the trucker fails to select the right policy, any event or mishap will raise the deductible that he or she has to pay in order to keep the unit fully covered by the chosen commercial truck insurance. Naturally, the logical thing would be simply to change the insurance company, but in such cases, the record of accomplishment of an insurance unit, especially a vehicle the size of a truck will follow the unit from insurance company to insurance company.

This makes that the simple idea of changing insurance companies to be defective and unpractical; the best possible solution and the one that is most adequate for the proper functioning of both the trucking unit as well as the commercial truck insurance is to make sure that the policy will cover all real potential accidents. Another thing that is important to consider coverage for is other possible damages such as those that might be caused by natural accidents and disasters.

In the end, it is only through responsible investigation and careful research that the truck owner and runner will be able to make sure that the commercial truck insurance is the right one for the particular work that the unit is carrying on. In such case, it cannot be and should not be the same insurance policy carried out for a truck that operates in Alaska than for a truck that generally operates in California.

If you own a business involved with big rigs you undoubtedly need adequate commercial truck insurance. Finding a quality company with a competitive commercial truck insurance quote may be easier said than done, but the internet provides a great solution.