Insurance

5 Things to Look For in Your Fleet Insurance Coverage

What are your bodily injury coverage limits?

Depending on your fleet insurance provider, you could have limits as low as $10,000/20,000. Unfortunately, that’s not going to be enough if a severe crash happens. Instead of carrying the minimum limits, we suggest bumping your coverages up to $100,000/300,000 or even $250,000/500,000.

Raising your coverage limits by thousands of dollars might only cost you a few extra bucks a month. Seriously, it could be a matter of $10 more a month to have $90,000 more worth of coverage. It’s worth your time to call an insurance agent and have them quote you with higher coverage limits so that you can see the price difference.

What else should you be asking your insurance agent about when reviewing your commercial car insurance policy? Read on to find out!

1. Full Car Coverage

First, you’ll want to ensure that your fleet auto insurance policy has comprehensive and collision coverage. Comprehensive is going to help protect your vehicles from damages that don’t occur in an accident.

Let’s say you come to work and realize that three of your cars have cracked windshields from a hail storm. Considering the largest piece of hail in U.S. history had an eight-inch diameter, a hail storm can do a lot of damage! If you have comprehensive coverage though, the insurance company can pay the bill for the damages. 

Another example of comprehensive coverage would be theft or animal damage. Suppose one of your employees left the company vehicle window down, and a raccoon tears up the interior. In that case, you could file a claim under comprehensive coverages.

Collision Coverage

Collision coverages will take care of all of the damages from actual accidents. How much collision and comprehensive coverage do you need?

Unlike other aspects of your fleet auto insurance policy, you won’t be setting the coverage limits. Instead, the amount of coverage you have will depend on the vehicle’s value.

2. Reasonable Deductibles You Can Afford

Are you wondering how to lower your car insurance premiums? Many business owners fall into the trap of adjusting their deductibles to lower their rates. However, this can cause problems when the time comes to pay up.

Deductibles are the amount you have to pay out of pocket before your insurance coverage kicks in. Let’s say, for instance, that you have comprehensive and collision coverage with $1,000 deductibles. If the hailstorm damaged your vehicle, you would have to pay the $1,000 deductible before you could file a comprehensive claim.

Paying $1,000 might not seem like a lot of money, but imagine if you had to pay that amount for multiple vehicles. Before you know it, you could be facing a $10,000 deductible or have to forgo filing a claim.

Instead of putting yourself in a challenging financial position, we suggest having reasonable deductibles. A good deductible would be $500 or less.

In some situations, you might even qualify for a $0 deductible. However, the policy premiums are usually high if you remove the deductible completely.

When calling around for auto insurance quotes, ask the fleet insurance agent to play with the deductible. Find out what it would cost you with a $1,000 deductible, $500 deductible, $200 deductible, and $0 deductible. Then decide what your company can afford to pay out of pocket if an accident took place and how much you can budget for your monthly premium.

3. Uninsured Motorist Coverage

If another driver hits your company vehicle, they should have to pay for the damages. It would be the other driver’s insurance policy that would kick in to help pay the bill.

But what if the other driver doesn’t have insurance? Or, what if the other driver has insurance with low limits? Then you’ll need to have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage to protect your company.

We suggest carrying uninsured motorist coverage on every vehicle. It’s also a good idea to stack the coverages.

4. Stack Coverages For More Security

What is stacked uninsured motorist coverage? Stacking the uninsured motorist coverage means that you’ll have access to more money if an accident takes place.

For instance, let’s say you decide to get fleet van insurance with uninsured motorist coverage limits of  $50,000 / 100,000. If you don’t stack the coverages, then you’ll have $50,000 of coverage per person, with a total max payout of 100,000 per accident.

If one of your employees has an injury and needs $50,000 worth of medical care, they’ll be able to use the uninsured motorist to pay for it. If their bill exceeds the $50,000 limit, you’ll have to cover the rest.

But let’s say you have three vehicles in your fleet, and you decide to stack the coverages. Now that same employee would have access to $150,000 worth of coverage, with a total payout of $300,000 per accident. If there are multiple employees in the vehicle or severe injuries, you’ll have more than enough money to cover everything.

5. Roadside Services And Rental Reimbursement

You also want to double-check that your fleet insurance has the correct type of add-on coverages in place. For instance, roadside services and rental car reimbursement can help keep your company running smoothly.

If one of your vehicles is undrivable following a crash, whether or not it’s your fault, you’ll be able to use the rental car reimbursement. This can easily save you thousands of dollars a month while waiting for the company car to undergo repairs.

Roadside services are also a huge plus, and they’re usually quite affordable. When you’re getting quotes; find out what the price will be with and without these additional coverages. Oftentimes the cost of add-on coverages is minor compared to the value and peace of mind they bring.

Call A Fleet Insurance Agent Today

As you can see, it’s better to pay a little more for commercial auto insurance if it means you have full coverage. Since you’re covering multiple cars and drivers, the risk of something going wrong is greater.

So make sure your policy covers all of the bases. Go ahead and call a fleet insurance agent today and start getting quotes to see what coverage your company can afford.

What other ways can you put your company in a secure position? Read another one of our blogs to find out.

Hemant Kumar
Hemant Kumar is a project manager at Tridindia with more than nine years of commendable experience in writing about LMS, translation, and IT. His unmatched talent and passion for digital marketing gave him the opportunity to work as a multi-tasking project manager at TridIndia’s sister company, Link Building Corp. Today, he contributes to the world by imparting knowledge on SEO, link building and internet marketing etc., that helps business owners grow their online business.