Using personal vehicles

I just sat down with my insurance agent on a few different things. I know a lot of people pull their trailers with personal vehicles (lawn care, contractors, power washers etc) and that was my plan starting out. I know William has said before not to use your personal vehicle but I didn’t know why. According to my agent if I’m pulling my trailer and something happens they won’t pay because it’s used for business even though my policy’s liability extends to the trailer I’m towing if it’s for personal use. I can however put my truck in the my llc’s name and insure it and the trailer both under a business policy but not just the trailer. It looks like that’s going to be my plan for now. We’re looking at signing the papers on a new Tundra next month and she said if I had these two insured with a business policy and wanted to pull it with the Tundra with a personal insurance policy it would be covered due to the trailer itself being insured. Seems like a bit of a mess and i know I may not be explaining this quite right. Basically just wanted to let new guys be aware of this and to talk to their agent to see what their policy’s cover. Also I know A lot of you guys run trailer set ups. Do you have a personal policy on the truck? Insurance on trailer?

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Rusty, good call on seeing an agent. I lot of guys on here would be screwed if they ever had an accident. Personal trucks don’t need to be pulling work trailers

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The best answer to your question is a simple flow chart.

If it gets destroyed can you pay to replace it and it not affect you financially at all.
Yes =(don’t insure it)
No= (Insure it)

No no no. You might be able to afford the trailer, but what about the family it took out and their survivors have sued you and you have no insurance.

I was meaning the equipment inside. Should have specified.

All of my vehicles but the van are commercial. I don’t even like my dad pulling the skid loader with his truck!

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I meant the liability for other people not replacement of my equipment. However the proper coverage would take care of both issues and will be the way I go about it. I would rather do this right and make no money. I get it’s all about ‘if’ something happens but why take that chance.

I think you can just get a commercial policy on your truck instead of changing everything. I’ve done that before but things may be different now. I’m going to inquire about it with my agent tomorrow. All my policies are with my shelter agent including my GL so we’ll see

Let us know what they say.

I can either lease it to my business or transfer the title. I’d rather just transfer the title and keep things separate.

Good thing you are talking to an agent, both my trailers are on separate business policies and so is my work truck. I have to admit I occasionally use my personal truck for work but very seldom and only when the work truck is unavailable for service or something similar.

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I use my personal truck to pull my trailer but I put the truck under a commercial policy that also covers the trailer and equipment. This was how my insurance agent set it up.

I just talked with my agent. He said that we’ll convert my existing policy to a commercial policy for not much more per month. A trailer policy runs about $50. Per year and get an inland marine policy to cover equipment at replacement cost which is nice. Years ago I watched a friends trailer burn due to a malfunction with the burner or something.

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Basically the same thing. Do you have an Lic? I think that’s wby I’d eithsr have to lease it to the business or change the title. Legally supposed to keep everything separated.

Mine said a inland marine policy too. So they are on the same page. That’s also supposedly more for stuff that comes on and off the trailer where like my power washer itself will be covered under the trailers policy as a whole. Just repeating what she said. All this because I wanted to get insurance on the shop to cover that Incase someone broke in. Also because my equipment leaves the property it wouldn’t be covered by my homeowners policy if it was stolen out of the garage or my house burned or if it was at the shop and something happened. (Someone may need to know that bit)

Thanks for letting me know Kenny!

I’m not an llc yet but definitely plan to be. To much to lose now for some sue happy idiot to try and take.

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