Think of your potential exposures (depending on what your business is):
- A CPA has a clerical assistant that will handle bank deposits and mail drop off.
- A Contractor’s employee wakes up on a cold morning, tries to start the company vehicle that is provide and it will not start – so he takes his pickup to get to the handful of project sites that he needs to cover for the day
- The sales person of a Manufacturing Operation uses their own vehicle for outside sales calls
If any of the employees above, have an accident while performing duties on the employer's behalf, the employer may be held accountable.
It's quite easy to address this exposure, make certain your Business Auto Policy (BAP) includes Non-owned Automobile Liability Insurance.
If you do not have a Business Auto Policy (the norm when vehicles are not owned by the business) you can typically add Non-owned Auto Liability to your General Liability (GL) Policy.
If you do not have a GL Policy – get one.
Depending on your industry, the annual premium for Non-owned Auto Liability is fairly nominal (a bit different story for pizza delivery operations). This is primarily because your Employee’s Personal Auto Policy will typically be considered Primary Insurance and your Non-owned Auto Liability Coverage will be Excess.
However, in the event of a serious accident, your employee may have insufficient coverage limits (limits that would be quickly exhausted by a large settlement) or may have overlooked a premium invoice and did not have coverage at the time of accident.
For these reason, it makes good sense to have Non-owned Auto Liability protection for your business.
posted by dan@hebbeln-ins.com