Cargo vans resemble huge commuter vans, although they usually lack windows and glass on the sides. Rather, their body is made of pure steel, allowing various kinds of freight to be carried quickly and efficiently. Thus, you can deploy them in a wide range of commercial settings.
Carpet cleaning enterprises, flower or cake designing deliveries, mechanical repair services, as well as other related businesses all use cargo vans. However, whenever you use a cargo van for your enterprise, cover it with the appropriate insurance.
Obviously, cargo van insurance offers the best coverage for cargo vans. Today’s discussion will talk about how much is cargo van insurance, what it is, and more!
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The commercial insurance for cargo vans is business auto insurance. Business auto or commercial auto insurance consists of coverages that take care of casualties of the accident your cargo van caused and protect the cargo van from damage. Proceed to the next section for an in-depth discussion about commercial auto policy included in work van insurance.
Auto liability insurance for cargo vans takes care of costs when your van causes or contributes to a mishap. It is a mandatory cover by legislation, and the minimum coverage you need to have differs by jurisdiction. A typical auto liability insurance for cargo van offers:
Bodily injury liability coverage - Bodily injury liability covers people's physical injuries because of an auto crash. Whenever your cargo van causes an incident and other individuals are injured, bodily injury insurance will cover the costs. Bodily injury additionally covers the costs of treatment, follow-up doctor appointments, rehab, and burial expenditures
Property damage liability coverage - Your auto liability insurance policy's damage to property coverage pays to repair the property damaged after the accident. This also covers any automobiles or immovable objects, including road structures, mailboxes, or signage that were destroyed during the incident
Medical payments protection can pay for the cost of your cargo van driver’s hospital bills and expenses if they sustained injuries during the mishap. This policy covers other occupants of the van as well, and payments are made without regard to the entity that caused the crash. Medical payment coverage is not offered by all carriers, so check with an agent to see if it's included in your cargo van commercial insurance terms.
This liability policy included in commercial auto insurance for cargo van takes care of repairs and replacements caused by unforeseeable dangers, mishaps, or occurrences. Physical damage insurance is essential for businesses that lease cargo vans since it offers the most comprehensive form of protection available. Many say that this is useful for businesses with an existing auto loan or lien against their vehicle:
Comprehensive damage protection - Comprehensive coverage provides a lot of protection for your cargo van. This covers damage from collisions, fire, theft, vandalism, and other events excluded in specified perils and collision damage protection
Collision Damage Protection - This coverage accounts for losses incurred whenever your van clashes with some other objects or gets damaged after it got involved in a road crash
Specified Peril (CAC) - The Specified Peril Policy covers you from certain incidents listed in your plan. The extent of this protection is restricted, and this does not include collisions or rollovers. Fire and Theft plus Combined Additional Coverage is the other name for this policy
When another motorist causes a collision, their insurance coverage caters to the harm incurred by your driver, occupants, and cargo van. But, if basic insurance does not protect that car, your firm will be responsible for all repair bills. Furthermore, even when motorists have coverage, they may not have enough of it, leaving you to shoulder the costs.
Uninsured or underinsured motorist insurance protects your business from the above-mentioned perils. If the other motorist is to blame but lacks the financial option of paying for the harm, this coverage will step in.
In case of accidents and the items inside the cargo van got damaged, none of policy above can provide coverage to recoup losses. And so, don’t forget to get cargo insurance for cargo van or sprinter van.
In brief, cargo insurance will provide money equal to the total value of cargo that got damaged because of a vehicular accident, fire, theft, vandalism, and other named perils. This policy is included in cargo van insurance or offered as a stand-alone policy.
All cargo vans used for business must be covered with commercial auto liability insurance. The amount of coverage depends on where your cargo van business is located.
All cargo vans used for business must be covered with commercial auto liability insurance. The amount of coverage depends on where your cargo van business is located.
You might be required to get the minimum cargo insurance coverage. Typically, most cargo van owner-operators need to get $100,000 cargo insurance to satisfy licensing requirements and customer contracts.
Say what if you’re carrying non-hazardous but valuable freight? If this is the case, you need to comply with another insurance requirement, which is the purchasing of the minimum $300,000 bodily injury coverage and auto liability coverage.
What if you’re renting a trailer so that your cargo van can carry more load? In this case, you also need to get trailer interchange insurance offering $100,000 bodily injury and property damage liability coverage.
Of course, if you have an assistant or a helper, workers com pensation insurance is required. Not getting workers compensation insurance is punishable by law. Authorities will impose fines or might even imprison you.
Finally, if you deliver or ship cargo regulated by the FMCSA, expect to get a motor carrier policy or MCS-90 endorsement
Aside from those we mentioned above, you might need to get other insurance policies depending on the type of cargo van business you’re running. For instance, the following insurances are very useful if you own a cargo van trucking business or cargo van rental business.
General liability insurance
Commercial property insurance
Workers compensation insurance
Employer’s liability insurance
Employment practices liability insurance
Business interruption insurance
Employee dishonesty insurance
Commercial property insurance ensures that you don’t experience significant losses if something happens to the commercial space of your cargo van business. Events such as fire, extreme weather, theft, and vandalism might destroy or damage it. The purpose of commercial property insurance is to give you money for building repair or reconstruction.
You can make commercial property insurance more comprehensive by adding optional policies. Such optional policies are business equipment and stocks and contents coverage.
Business equipment coverage covers all the valuable work tools and equipment your cargo van business owns. If such work tools and equipment become damaged or lost because of fire, theft, and other named perils, business equipment coverage will reimburse your losses. Replacements might even be provided if such work tools and equipment are less than three years old.
There are other valuables items your cargo van business owns aside from work tools and equipment. And the purpose of stocks and contents coverage is to cover those. In practice, stocks and contents coverage provides money if valuable items of your business get damaged because of fire, theft, vandalism, extreme weather, and other named perils.
Someone might experience an accident while in the premises of your cargo van business. It’s also possible for customers to file a claim and accuse your business of causing personal injuries or property damage with its services. To protect yourself against such exposures, get general liability insurance.
General liability insurance is a common inclusion in cargo van rental business insurance. This policy covers costs if someone files a personal injury claim or property damage claim. Particularly, you can use general liability insurance to compensate aggrieved parties and pay for defense costs.
Just like commercial property insurance, general liability insurance comes with optional coverages. Such optional coverages are:
Advertising injury coverage
Rented premises liability coverage
Advertising injury coverage will take care of all expenses if your cargo van business faces a libel, slander, or copyright infringement claim. Reputational harm lawsuits are very expensive, and many find themselves paying millions of dollars. Therefore, it’s smart to always include advertising injury coverage to general liability insurance.
Rented premises liability coverage is useful if you’re renting a commercial space for your cargo van business. When the commercial space you’re renting gets destroyed or damaged, the landlord will surely ask for reimbursements. The purpose of rented premises liability coverage is to pay the landlord on your behalf.
Running a cargo van business means that you’re employing drivers, mechanics, finance professionals, and others. Whether part time or full-time, know that you’re responsible if an employee becomes injured or sick because of work.
To avoid using personal funds in helping the employee recover, get workers compensation insurance. Workers compensation insurance will cover the hospitalization, treatment, and rehabilitation of the employee.
Some work-related injuries or illnesses will force an employee to stop working momentarily. When an employee can’t work, then no income is generated. And if the employee can’t generate income, paying for bills, food, and other costs will be very problematic.
Workers compensation insurance also assures an injured employee will get reimbursements for lost wages. In practice, a worker covered by workers compensation insurance receives an allowance equal to two-thirds of his or her average weekly wage.
Some work-related injuries and illnesses might kill one of your employees. Know that workers compensation insurance also provides help in such a situation. Particularly, it will provide death benefits you would have otherwise provided if you decided not to get covered.
An employee might accuse you of being negligent after experiencing a work-related injury. Negligence lawsuits against employers can be very costly. If you lose the legal battle, expect to pay attorney fees amounting to more than $100,000 plus settlements amounting to more than $500,000.
When an injured employee files a claim, employer’s liability insurance pays for everything on your behalf - meaning that it will take care of attorney fees, other legal costs, and settlements to the aggrieved party.
By the way, employer’s liability insurance doesn’t provide coverage if it’s proven that the employee was injured because of malicious mischief or any other intentional acts.
Sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, and wrongful termination are other reasons why an employee might file a claim against your business. Employer’s liability insurance doesn’t cover these. Instead, the insurance policy that will shoulder defense costs and settlements is employment practices liability insurance.
Your cargo van business will incur a lot of losses if an employee or a group of employees manipulate documents, steal or destroy money and other similar objects, misrepresent sales, siphon customer refunds to their own bank accounts, or misappropriate business funds.
If you’re afraid of the crimes that employees might commit, consider getting employee dishonesty insurance. The job of employee dishonesty insurance is to cover your losses if an employee commits the perils we mentioned in the above paragraph.
If your commercial space is utterly destroyed, you’ll have to suspend business operations for a while to make way for reconstruction. The same is also true if you need to relocate or if your business experiences an economic crisis.
Suspending business operations means that your business won’t earn money. The problem is there’s bills, wages, and other operational costs to be taken care of. And without an insurance policy that covers lost income, your business will be forced to use reserved funds and incur losses as a result.
Business interruption insurance is very helpful. This policy reimburses lost revenue after your business suspended operations because of relocation, reconstruction, or economic crisis. Business interruption insurance provides just the right amount of money you can use to pay for employee wages, loans, mortgages, and other operational costs.
As proven by the current world situation right now, pandemics can really cause businesses to stop operating. However, though this might sound agreeable for you, it’s important to recognize that business interruption insurance doesn’t cover pandemics and other related events.
The typical annual cost of commercial insurance for cargo van is $3,300 a year or $275 a month for a $1 million general liability coverage. But some factors such as where you live can influence your commercial cargo van insurance costs, since some jurisdictions need more protection than others. Below are the estimates of commercial cargo van insurance cost in few jurisdictions:
State | Cargo Van Insurance Rates per Month | Cargo Van Insurance Rates per Year |
---|---|---|
California | $574 | $6,888 |
Florida | $213.75 | $2,565 |
Maine | $486 | $5,832 |
Michigan | $440.16 | $5,282 |
Minnesota | $189.25 | $2,271 |
Montana | $210.42 | $2,525 |
Oregon | $183.75 | $2,205 |
Texas | $216.17 | $2,594 |
It is also worth noting that even in the same jurisdiction, rates may vary significantly . Your company's geographical coverage, employees' driving records, complaints, background, and average mileage each year also influence the pricing. Insurance plans and limits also play a huge role.
The rates also vary depending on whether you pick a plan with a "single claim limit " or one with a "split claim limit. " The single claim limit refers to protection for a specific cash amount per incident (for example, $100,000 for bodily harm). The split claim policy usually has three separate monetary limits for every bracket: per individual, overall bodily harm, as well as total property damage. $35,000 for each individual, $70,000 in cumulative bodily harm, plus $75,000 in overall property damage.
For further reference, here’s another table showing the pricing of the best insurance companies for cargo vans:
| Cost per Month | Cost per Year | Best for |
---|---|---|---|
CoverWallet | $169 | $2,028 | Cargo van insurance quote comparison online |
Hiscox | $173 | $2,076 | Commercial auto insurance for cargo vans used in different business industries |
Geico | $230 | $2,760 | Commercial auto insurance for cargo vans with discounts |
Get all the best quotes from leading providers in a click of a button!
Here are some of the best cargo van insurance companies. Read the reviews to know their pros, cons, and monthly pricing for a $1 million general liability coverage.
Allows you to compare quotes and find the best cargo van insurance
Certificate of insurance available online
Online and easy policy management
Not an insurance company but a broker selling the quotes of its partners
CoverWallet is an insurance broker that allows you to compare the quotes of its partners. Even though it doesn’t underwrite policies, we see it fit that this company is the first on our list as it allows you to get insured fast. With CoverWallet, you’ll enjoy an online certificate of insurance, efficient policy management, and more.
Best for: Cargo van insurance quote comparison online
Average cost: $169 per month
Our rating: 10/10
Offers generous policy limits
Doesn’t have an insurance product tailored for cargo vans
Hiscox doesn’t have tailored cargo van insurance. However, it offers commercial auto insurance for businesses in different industries. And so, this company can still cover you. Hiscox commercial auto insurance provides coverage to hired, rented, or owned cargo vans. Policies included are underinsured/uninsured motorist, auto liability, physical damage coverage, cargo insurance, and more.
Best for: Commercial auto insurance for cargo vans used in different business industries
Average cost: $173 per month
Our rating: 9/10
Offers discounts options
Doesn’t allow you to cancel cargo van insurance easily
For your business to be successful, you need to be mindful of how you spend each penny, and Geico knows how to exactly ensure that: offering excellent service at reasonable rates. The best part is that you can get Geico's coverage regardless of what your enterprise is or what type of vehicles you plan to insure, including cargo vans.
Not only can Geico protect any size of fleets, along with all models of vehicles, trucks, or vans, but it could also protect vehicles used for specialist services such as hauling, landscaping, and building. Expect the same high-quality customer care Geico is known for, particularly when you are in a pinch.
Best for: Commercial auto insurance for cargo vans with discounts
Average cost: $230 per month
Our rating: 8/10
The best way to get the cheapest and most useful cargo van insurance is to compare quotes. You can start doing so here. Just click or tap the “Get Quotes” button and see the offers of the best insurance companies.
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Use anyone except Employers. Period. They are non-transparent and shameful. After I complained long enough to warrant a call from a supervisor, the supervisor called back from a PRIVATE NUMBER (no caller ID), left a message that they are not reversing their decision (without any communication with me), and failed to leave a phone number for me to call back. She was hiding! They also fact find via email and phone calls, which is terrific for speed and communication. However, after setting a precedence of email or phone calls, they send time sensitive information via email, without any heads up... they are hoping you miss it and forfeit via expiration. Evil policies. Go elsewhere.
This place is an absolute joke of a company and should be ashamed of the way they conduct business. I was hurt on the job at the end of July and it took them just shy of 7 weeks to issue out a paycheck to me. Yes the amount was back dated but still. Not many have the luxury of not receiving a paycheck for almost 2 months. To top it all off, the original adjuster marked me down for the wrong state which caused a problem from the get go, I've had 3 different adjusters now since each one can't seem to figure out the simplicity of my claim. All my paperwork which includes, my job, house, and drs visits all are from the same state and city but yet some how I have been filed under a completely different state 1500 miles away. They do not answer your phone calls or emails no matter how many you leave. I've had to escalate my frustrations to the supervisors of each of these individuals in order to even get some kind of response. I've had more communication and information given to me about my claim from the customer service representatives then the actual adjusters.......... please tell me how that works?! A serious overhaul needs to happen here in order to serve your clients the way they deserve to be taken care of. 10/10 do not recommend this company to a single soul on earth
I have never had the displeasure of working with a more incompetent and disrespectful person in my life. I’m an injured worker and the adjuster that was assigned to my case was named Carrie Furgeson. In the past 6 weeks that I’ve been injured and out of work I have only been able to get ahold of her twice, not for lack of trying. I have left countless voicemails, countless emails, and she ignores them all. When I am finally able to get ahold of her I’m greeted with terrible customer service. She is rude, she talks over me and I’m hardly able to get a word in edgewise. She spelled my name wrong on my documents even after I spelled it for her properly countless times, this caused a whole new issue with my bank. I have bill collectors from the hospital calling me demanding payment and Carrie Furgeson won’t do a single thing to help, or to get them paid. All of my documentation is in Colorado, my job is in Colorado, my address is in Colorado, all my Dr offices and appointments have been in Colorado and Carrie still managed to hold my claim because she wasn’t sure what state she needed to file it under. It’s been 6 weeks since my Injury and my company still hasn’t received the wage paperwork to fill out so they can get me my correct wages. When she’s not ignoring me she’s answering my questions with “I don’t know” well I don’t know how she got this job, because apparently she doesn’t know anything about it. She is a disgusting morose individual inside and out and I genuinely wish her the worst in all of her future endeavors. I highly recommend you don’t use this company. Please if you are a business owner and your looking into this company please don’t use them. I’m sure they have the cheapest payment and that’s why companies use them in the first place, but you will be doing your employees a grave disservice by forcing them to venture into this absolute dumpster fire of a company. I would rate 0/5 if possible but 1 was the lowest I was allowed.
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As long as they cover your line of business, you're literally covered! best rates, best coverage, best online experience, best professionals, can't be happier that I chose them!