{"id":86,"date":"2026-07-31T13:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T19:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/?p=86"},"modified":"2026-07-23T14:33:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:33:44","slug":"does-commercial-auto-insurance-cover-employees-driving-their-own-cars-for-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/does-commercial-auto-insurance-cover-employees-driving-their-own-cars-for-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Commercial Auto Insurance Cover Employees Driving Their Own Cars for Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>&#8220;My Employee Uses Their Own Car for Deliveries, Are We Covered?&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>This is one of the questions Tom Steckler Agency gets asked most often by small business owners in Fort Wayne, and the honest answer is: probably not the way you think.<\/p>\n<h3>The Assumption That Trips Everyone Up<\/h3>\n<p>A lot of business owners assume that if an employee is driving their own personal vehicle for work purposes, whether that&#8217;s running to the bank, delivering an order, or picking up supplies, the employee&#8217;s personal auto insurance handles everything if something goes wrong. Sometimes that&#8217;s true. Often it isn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<h3>Where the Gap Actually Shows Up<\/h3>\n<p>Personal auto policies are built around personal use. Some insurers specifically exclude coverage, or reduce it significantly, when a vehicle is being used for business purposes at the time of an accident. If your employee causes a serious accident while running a work errand, and their personal insurer denies the claim because of business use, that liability can land squarely on your business.<\/p>\n<h3>This Is Where Hired and Non-Owned Auto Coverage Comes In<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Hired auto coverage applies to vehicles your business rents or leases for work purposes<\/li>\n<li>Non-owned auto coverage applies to vehicles employees own personally but use for business tasks<\/li>\n<li>Together, these fill the gap that a standard commercial auto policy, which typically only covers company-owned vehicles, doesn&#8217;t address<\/li>\n<li>This coverage becomes especially important if employees regularly run errands, make deliveries, or drive between job sites using their own cars<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Why This Matters More Than Most Owners Realize<\/h3>\n<p>Even a business that doesn&#8217;t own a single company vehicle can face significant liability exposure if employees are using personal cars for any work-related driving. It&#8217;s one of those coverage gaps that stays invisible right up until an accident happens, and by then it&#8217;s too late to fix.<\/p>\n<h3>Worth Checking Before It Becomes a Problem<\/h3>\n<p>If your Fort Wayne business has employees driving their own vehicles for any work purpose, even occasionally, it&#8217;s worth a quick conversation to see if hired and non-owned auto coverage makes sense for you. Tom Steckler Agency can walk through your specific situation and help close that gap. Check out our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/commercial-insurance.html\" title=\"Commercial Insurance\">commercial insurance page<\/a> or give us a call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;My Employee Uses Their Own Car for Deliveries, Are We Covered?&#8221; This is one of the questions Tom Steckler Agency gets asked most often by small business owners in Fort Wayne, and the honest answer is: probably not the way you think. The Assumption That Trips Everyone Up A lot of business owners assume that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22,13,15],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commercial-insurance","tag-commercial-insurance","tag-fort-wayne","tag-tom-steckler-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomstecklerinsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}