Reader question:

I should I have a specific type of commercial car insurance coverage for when I’m doing non business things in a company vehicle?

Ryan

You might.

Most businesses have commercial car insurance policies for the vehicles that they let their employees used, so for the most part when you are running errands or on a business trip, this is not something that you need to worry about. It is also true that a lot of businesses have it so that the commercial car is always insured, even if you’re just using it to go home for your lunch break or pick up your dry cleaning on the way back to work. In order to find out whether or not your company falls into this area as it concerns commercial car insurance policies, make sure you ask. You never want to know too little, too late.

If your company’s commercial car insurance coverage does not cover the vehicles while you are doing non business things, then you should get your own coverage. The type of coverage you can use is non owners auto insurance. This will cover you regardless of what car you drive, so long as you are not driving a vehicle that your own name is registered to.

Non owners car insurance is available from many companies and it is much cheaper than regular car insurance policies that come attached to a car. One of the reasons for this is that it only comes with the bare minimum coverage required by the state. If you want to get things like comprehensive and collision coverage, then it is not possible to do so on a non owners car insurance policy. This could turn unfortunate for someone using a company car for non company business who gets into an at fault accident, because while their liability is covered, the company car is still ruined. For this reason it’s probably a good idea to keep your personal and business driving lives separate, so that you never get into the problem of driving without proper vehicle insurance coverage.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.