Commercial auto insurance in Spokane
Coverage for the vehicles your business owns, leases, rents or asks employees to drive.
Personal auto policies exclude business use, and carriers do check. If a vehicle is titled to the business, wrapped with your logo, or carrying tools and crew to a job site, it needs a commercial policy — and so, usually, do the employee vehicles you send out on errands.
The hired and non-owned gap
This is the coverage most businesses are missing. If an employee runs to the bank, picks up supplies, or drives a client to lunch in their own car, their personal policy is primary — and when it runs out, the claim comes to you. Hired and non-owned auto coverage sits behind the employee's policy and protects the business. It is inexpensive and routinely overlooked.
Winter driving on the Palouse and in the Spokane Valley
Claims frequency here is seasonal and predictable. Black ice on Division, Sunset Hill in freezing fog, I-90 over Fourth of July Pass — carriers know the pattern and rate for it. What they reward is a written driver policy, documented MVR checks before hiring, and a real rule about phones in company vehicles. Those three things move your premium more than almost anything else under your control.
Cargo and tools
Standard commercial auto covers the vehicle, not what is inside it. Tools in the back of a stolen van, or equipment damaged in a collision, need inland marine or a contractor's equipment floater. If your vans hold five figures of tooling overnight, this matters.
What Commercial Auto covers
- Liability for injuries and damage you cause on the road
- Physical damage to your own vehicles and trailers
- Hired and non-owned auto for employee and rental vehicles
- Tools, equipment and cargo in transit
Your service van rear-ends a car on I-90 in icy conditions. Commercial auto covers the other driver’s vehicle and injuries, repairs your van, and defends the claim — where a personal policy would likely have denied it outright for business use.
Questions
Commercial Auto FAQs
Only if the vehicle is genuinely personal. Personal auto policies contain business-use exclusions, and carriers apply them at claim time, not at quote time. A vehicle titled to the business, used to transport goods or crew, or carrying commercial signage needs a commercial policy.
That is hired and non-owned auto coverage. It usually costs a few hundred dollars a year and is the single most commonly missing coverage we find on reviews of existing policies.
If that truck is used for the business, yes. Fleet pricing starts at larger vehicle counts, but single-vehicle commercial policies are common and straightforward.
Usually written alongside
Coverage that works with this one
Workers' Compensation
Required in Washington for nearly every employer. Covers medical care and lost wages when someone gets hurt on the job.
Read moreGeneral Liability
The baseline policy. Covers injuries to other people and damage to their property arising out of your business.
Read moreBusiness Owner's Policy (BOP)
General liability and commercial property bundled into one policy, usually for less than buying them separately.
Read moreStart with your trade. We will take it from there.
Tell us what the business does and we will pre-select the coverage it normally needs, then compare carriers for you. About two minutes, no obligation.
Prefer to talk it through? Call (509) 944-0847.