So you’re working out of the home and are self employed, and you do use your car for business reasons. Do you need a commercial car insurance policy or is it okay to just keep your personal one alone? It really depends on how you do things. People who just make the occasional business trip or use their cars only to deliver things now and then would do well just to stick with their personal auto insurance policy and should have no problem with it. However, that isn’t the only thing you should take into consideration when thinking about what type of car insurance to get.

Where a commercial auto insurance policy might come in as more necessary would be if you are driving other people around for your business. Businesses such as a livery one will need commercial car insurance so that you have something to back you up in the case of an accident.

A lot of the same coverages that apply to personal car insurance apply equally to commercial car insurance. For one thing, if you have a car specifically for business use, but you occasionally have a member of your family grab groceries with it, then they would still be covered if they get into an accident, as would any member of your household, just like with personal car insurance. If you have someone who works for you drive the car and they get into a car accident, then the coverage would be split. The car’s damages would be covered by your commercial car insurance policy while injuries would fall under worker’s comp. Then, if you decided to travel with your commercial car insurance policy, even if you weren’t traveling for business reasons, that would be covered as well.

The car insurance companies decide how much you’re going to pay for your commercial car insurance the same way they decide the premium for your personal car insurance. Your mileage, your car, your drivers, all of that will be looked at to figure out what kind of premium to charge you. Your driving record will be taken into consideration. It is always possible to be denied, as well. What kind of coverage you get and how high your deductible is will play a major role as well in what you end up paying for your commercial car insurance coverage. If you have more coverage, you pay more. The same goes for a lower deductible.

Because you are an operator of a business, though, you need to not worry so much about the higher cost of more coverage. You need more coverage. Your liabilities will need to be higher, because you have to consider that not only are you protecting yourself, but your protecting part of your source of income. Losing your car if you depend on it for business could throw you into a lot of debt. It’s also the case that if you get into an at fault accident, the other driver can sue you double: as an individual and as a business person. This means that you’ll need to have liability limits the hundred thousands rather than just the ten thousands in order to keep yourself properly protected.

Whatever you end up going with, personal or commercial car insurance, it won’t make much of a difference. Everything is equal up until the price, and the price for commercial car insurance is only slightly higher, and most of that is just because you need higher liability limits.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.