Only 25% of new businesses make it past the 15-year mark.
It doesn’t matter how valuable your product or services are, if you don’t have the funds to keep your company up and running, you won’t make it in today’s competitive market. Sadly, for a lot of business owners, a lack of capital is what leads to their demise. Thankfully, by becoming a pro at budgeting all of the different costs required for a business to thrive, you can avoid overspending.
If you’re a business owner looking at getting commercial car insurance, this article is for you. We will help you learn some of the best tips and tricks for understanding, and preparing for your insurance premiums.
How much does a commercial auto policy cost? Read on to find out!
Commercial Car Insurance Needs
To figure out how much commercial car insurance costs, you’ll first have to discover your coverage needs. For instance, getting coverage for an entire fleet of vehicles is going to be a lot more expensive than insuring your vehicle that you sometimes use for business purposes.
A good range for estimating your commercial car insurance rates would be to guess it’ll land somewhere between $600 to $2,500 for each vehicle. In addition to the number of vehicles, you’ll be insured, you also need to keep in mind the coverage limits you want to carry.
Are you going to carry the bare minimum, as required by state law? Or are you looking for a broad policy that can give you a good safety net if the worst-case scenario takes place?
We suggest that you work directly with the licensed insurance agent to determine exactly what your coverage needs are. While obtaining minimum coverages may make you street legal, that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for your company.
North Carolina Minimum Requirements
In the state of North Carolina, the law requires you to carry at least $30,000/60,000/25,000 worth of liability coverage on a commercial auto policy. The first number, $30,000, pertains to the amount each injured passenger can claim.
For instance, if you hit another vehicle and injured the driver, the driver could claim up to $30,000 worth of damages for their injuries. The second number, $60,000, refers to the maximum amount the policy will pay out for liability coverages.
If there’s a third person in the vehicle, or one person’s injuries exceed $60,000, your policy won’t be able to foot the bill. Instead, you’ll be looking at the ramifications of dealing with a personal injury lawsuit, as well as other legal complications.
Finally, the last number, $25,000, is for property damage. If you carry the minimum amount of liability coverage, you’ll only have $25,000 to pay for any property you damaged during an accident.
Car Insurance Rates for Multiple Vehicles
Are you looking for car insurance rates for several vehicles? When it comes to liability coverages, North Carolina law requires you to cover all vehicles the same. If one of the vehicles on your commercial auto policy has liability coverage, all of the vehicles have to carry it. Similarly, the liability coverage limits have to be the same for each vehicle on the policy.
Driving History Impacts Price
Moving on, let’s talk about how you’re driving history will impact the price of your commercial auto insurance. If you’re buying a commercial auto policy for a fleet of vehicles, you want to be extremely picky about who you hire to drive them.
Unfortunately, North Carolina ranks among the top 30 states in America with bad drivers. Whatever you do, make sure you’re not hiring these bad drivers to operate your company’s vehicles.
Insurance providers will be wary of any drivers that have multiple incidents on their motor vehicle reports. Whereas, when you focus on hiring drivers that have a squeaky clean driving record, you might be able to qualify for a discount.
Other Coverages to Consider
What’s going to pay for your vehicles, and your drivers if they get hurt? Similar to a personal vehicle policy, commercial policies can also provide a certain amount of medical coverage for the policyholders. When you’re picking your policy, we suggest choosing the maximum medical payment amount available, so you’ll be well covered if an accident takes place.
You’ll also want to consider what type of vehicle coverages you want. Comprehensive and collision coverages are the two coverages that will help pay for damages to your vehicle after an accident.
Even if the accident was the fault of one of your company’s drivers, comprehensive and collision coverages will still apply. If somebody else causes an accident that isn’t related to your company, then their liability coverages would help pay for your vehicle.
Saving on Comprehensive and Collision
How much will it cost to include comprehensive and collision coverages on your policy? For starters, if you don’t own all of your vehicles outright, you’ll likely be required to carry both types of property coverage.
For instance, if you have a loan on the vehicle, the lien holder will want to know that the vehicle is fully covered.
Comprehensive is the coverage now take care of things such as theft, vandalism, or storm damage. Whereas collision coverage helps pay for damage to your vehicle when collides with another object.
Vehicle Type and Price
Next, the cost of comprehensive and collision coverages are going to vary based on the type of vehicles you have. If you have older vehicles, you won’t need as much property coverage as you would if you had newer vehicles.
In some cases, you’ll want to avoid providing full coverage for older vehicles, since it won’t be cost-effective. However, if you have fairly new vehicles that hold any value, you want to make sure you’re fully insured.
The cost of adding comprehensive and collision coverages to your policy will vary from one policy to the next. It could be a matter of a few hundred dollars price difference or thousands of dollars price difference.
Get an Accurate Quote
There you have it! Now you know the ins and outs of what goes into calculating commercial car insurance premiums. Since every company is going to need a customized policy, the price can vary greatly.
However, rather than focusing on the price of the policy, the most important thing is to focus on getting the right coverages! Reach out to one of our insurance agents today and let us review your coverage needs with you.
By understanding the type of business you own, and the type of vehicles and drivers your insurance, you’ll be able to get an accurate quote!