Should You File A Claim With Your Personal Or?Your Commercial Auto Insurance?Company?

If you have one vehicle you use both in your business and for personal trips, you may get involved in an accident where you're not sure if you should file a claim with your personal or commercial auto insurance carrier. It depends on what you were doing at the time, but that can be a gray area. Here's what you should know.

When Does Commercial Auto Insurance Work? 

If you have both personal and commercial auto insurance on the same vehicle, your commercial auto insurance policy works while you're driving for business purposes. Personal use is generally for things like running errands or going out on weekends. Business use is trips between clients, moving business equipment, and similar uses. When you're traveling between work and home, it usually counts as personal commuting that falls under your personal auto insurance. The problem is that there can sometimes be gray areas such as taking a client out on the weekend that could either count as business entertainment or just going out with a friend.

Where Should You File Your Claim? 

In some situations, the accident will obviously be during a personal or business use of your vehicle. That's the insurance company you should file with. 

For those gray area claims, notify both insurance companies. If you only file with one, they might take longer to review your claim than the time you have to file with the other. If the insurance company you filed with denies your claim, you won't be able to file a claim with the other one, even if they would have paid you if you originally filed with them. Note that this doesn't mean you're trying to get paid twice or committing insurance fraud. You just give the insurance companies your full information so they can figure out who is responsible for paying the claim.

What If Both Insurance Companies Deny Your Claim? 

You may find yourself in a situation where both insurance companies are saying your claim is excluded. You can usually appeal and get your claim sorted out eventually, but it's possible to have an accident that wouldn't be covered by either your personal or commercial auto insurance company because of overlapping exclusions. The best way to avoid this situation is to pay very close attention to what each policy covers. Or get both policies from the same carrier to guarantee complete coverage.

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