Hired and non-owned auto insurance
Coverwatch places hired and non-owned auto for businesses whose people drive their own cars or rented vehicles on the clock. We structure it onto the right policy so a delivery-run crash is actually covered when it lands, beyond what a contract certificate asks for.
- Symbols 8 and 9 the ISO symbols that turn it on
- Endorsement rides on a BOP or commercial auto
- Business use the personal auto exclusion it fixes
At a glance
- What it covers
- Injury to other people, or damage to their property, when your worker crashes a personal or rented car on the job.
- What it doesn't
- Repairing the rented or employee car they were driving, or any vehicle your business owns.
Trusted by 60+ carrier partners
What does hired and non-owned auto insurance cover?
Hired and non-owned auto insurance covers your business's liability when an employee crashes a vehicle you do not own, either their personal car (non-owned) or a rented or borrowed one (hired), while on company business. It pays the third party's injury and property damage claim plus your legal defense. It is liability only and does not repair that vehicle.
How we get you covered
We take hired and non-owned auto insurance to 60+ markets, build it to fit your business, and keep it compliant.
Read your risk
We map what could actually go wrong in your operation, where a claim would come from, and who would bring it.
Shop 60+ markets
We take your risk to the carriers that know your class and make them compete on price and terms.
Build the endorsements
We add the endorsement wording that decides whether the policy responds to a claim, beyond the base form.
Keep you compliant
We handle the COIs, additional-insured certs, and renewals, so you are never the one chasing paperwork.
Who needs hired & non-owned auto
Any business whose people drive personal or rented vehicles on the job, even one with no company cars, from delivery restaurants to contractor crews to parts runners.
Restaurants
The moment a kitchen offers delivery, every driver in a personal car becomes the restaurant's auto exposure under vicarious liability.
Contractors
Crews drive their own trucks to job sites and supply houses every day, and the business is on the hook for a crash on the clock.
General contractors
Subs and crew in personal trucks plus rented equipment haulers make both the hired and non-owned grants relevant.
Handyman
A one-person shop running to jobs and hardware stores in a personal vehicle still needs the non-owned grant.
Electricians
Techs using personal vehicles between calls and parts pickups create the everyday non-owned auto exposure.
Garages
Parts runners and shuttle errands in personal or borrowed cars put the shop on the hook for a crash, separate from garagekeepers exposure.
Ecommerce
Online sellers who use staff or rented vehicles for local drop-offs, market runs, or fulfillment errands pick up a non-owned and hired auto exposure most owners never plan for.
What's covered, and what isn't
In the policy
Non-owned auto liability for employee cars
When an employee drives their own car on company business and causes a crash, the policy pays the injured third party and defends your business. This is the everyday errand, sales call, or delivery run exposure that owners overlook.
Hired auto liability for rented vehicles
Sometimes your business rents or borrows a vehicle for a job, say a moving truck or a rented car. If the driver then causes injury or property damage, the policy covers your liability and the cost to defend it.
Bodily injury to other people
Medical bills, lost wages, and pain-and-suffering claims from people your driver injures. Auto injury verdicts have climbed sharply, so this is the part of the policy that protects the business from a six- or seven-figure judgment.
Property damage to others
Damage your driver does to another vehicle, a building, a storefront, or a fence while on company business. The other party's repair bill and any related claim are covered, along with your legal defense.
Legal defense costs
The policy hires and pays the lawyers who defend your business in an auto lawsuit, even one that turns out to be groundless. For a serious-injury claim, defense alone often runs into the high five figures before any settlement is reached.
Not in the policy
Damage to the hired or rented vehicle
Repairing the rental car or moving truck your business hired is not covered by the liability grant. That gap is filled by a separate hired auto physical damage endorsement, which insures the vehicle itself.
Covered by hired auto physical damage (endorsement)
Damage to the employee's own car
If the worker's personal vehicle is wrecked in the crash, this policy does not repair it. Fixing that car falls to the employee's own collision coverage on their personal auto policy.
Covered by the employee's personal auto policy
Vehicles your business owns or titles
Any car, truck, or van titled to the business is not a hired or non-owned auto. Owned vehicles need a full commercial auto policy with their own liability and physical damage.
Covered by Commercial Auto
The driver's own injuries on the job
When your employee is hurt in the crash, their medical bills and lost wages count as a workplace injury, which workers' compensation handles. The auto liability grant only pays people outside your business.
Covered by Workers' Compensation
Rideshare and for-hire delivery as the core business
Standard hired and non-owned auto assumes occasional, incidental use. A business whose whole model is delivery or transport for hire needs a purpose-built commercial auto program to match that constant road exposure.
Claims hired & non-owned auto pays
Delivery run hits a pedestrian
An employee delivering food in their own car strikes a pedestrian in a crosswalk while rushing a late order. The injured person sues the business, not just the driver, because the crash happened in the course of employment. HNOA pays the claim and defense.
$100K–$1M+
Worker's personal truck causes a multi-car wreck
A crew member running to a supplier in their own pickup rear-ends a line of stopped traffic, injuring two drivers. Their personal auto policy denies the claim under its business-use exclusion, leaving the business as the defendant.
$50K–$750K
Rented box truck damages property
An employee driving a rented box truck for a move clips a building's overhang and a parked car. The hired auto liability grant covers the third-party property damage and defense, though repairing the rented truck itself needs the physical damage endorsement.
$25K–$250K
Errand crash with a serious injury
A staffer driving a personal car to the bank runs a light and seriously injures another motorist. With auto injury verdicts rising, the demand exceeds the driver's personal limits and the business is pulled in to cover the rest.
$150K–$2M+
Ranges are typical defense and settlement bands for these claim types, not a quote. Actual exposure depends on the injury, the jurisdiction, and your limits.
How much coverage you need
There is no standard HNOA limit because it borrows the auto policy's limit. Two things set what you actually need, and you carry whichever is higher.
- What a contract or rental company requires
- Landlords, clients, and vehicle rental desks often require evidence of auto liability at one million per accident before they let you operate. That contractual floor is frequently the reason a business buys HNOA in the first place.
- What a serious auto injury actually costs
- A single bad crash can produce a demand far above a personal policy's limits. Because auto injury severity keeps rising, size the limit to a realistic worst case and often top it with an umbrella, which usually means carrying well above the contract minimum.
- Commercial vehicle rental desks
- $1M / accident
- Standard commercial lease or vendor contract
- $1M CSL
- General contractor's subcontract
- $1M+ auto
Major truck and van rental companies require renters to carry or buy auto liability, commonly at one million per accident, before releasing the vehicle for business use.
Many leases and master service agreements list hired and non-owned auto liability at one million combined single limit as a required coverage on the certificate of insurance.
GCs routinely require subs to carry auto liability including hired and non-owned, often at one million or more, even when the sub owns no titled vehicles.
- Each accident (CSL)
- $1,000,000
- Hired and non-owned grant
- Shares the auto limit
- Physical damage
- Not included
- Defense
- Usually outside the limit
The most the policy pays for any single accident, combining bodily injury and property damage into one combined single limit. This is the floor most contracts and rental companies expect.
HNOA does not carry its own separate limit. It rides on the liability limit of the commercial auto policy or BOP it is endorsed onto, so the auto limit is what responds.
Liability only means damage to the hired or non-owned vehicle is excluded entirely. Covering that car requires a separate hired auto physical damage endorsement with its own limit and deductible.
On most ISO commercial auto forms, the insurer pays defense costs on top of your limit, not out of it, so fighting a suit does not erode what is left to settle the claim.
Endorsements that close the gaps
The base form is the start. These add-ons are where the policy gets built to fit your business.
Hired auto physical damage
Adds coverage for damage to the rented or borrowed vehicle itself, the gap the liability-only grant leaves open. It is switched on by listing a physical-damage covered-auto symbol on the declarations page, and CA 20 54 (Employee Hired Autos) extends it when staff rent in their own names. Worth adding for any business that regularly rents trucks or cars.
Additional insured, lessor
CA 20 01Names the rental or leasing company as additional insured, which most rental desks require on the certificate before they hand over the keys.
Drive other car (DOC)
Extends coverage to owners or executives driving non-owned cars so the business policy responds for them directly. Used when principals have no personal auto of their own to fall back on.
Waiver of subrogation
CA 04 44Stops your insurer from later recovering from a party you agreed by contract to hold harmless. Many leases and subcontracts require it as a condition of doing business.
Questions buyers actually ask
They are two grants people buy together, but they cover different vehicles. Non-owned auto liability responds when an employee drives their own personal car on company business and causes a crash. Hired auto liability responds when the business rents, leases, or borrows a vehicle, like a moving truck for a job, and the driver causes a loss. In ISO terms, non-owned is Symbol 9 and hired is Symbol 8. Most businesses without company cars buy both as one endorsement because both exposures show up the moment any employee drives for work, whether in their own car or a rented one.
Often it does not, and that is exactly why this coverage exists. A personal auto policy carries a business-use exclusion that can deny a claim when the driver was working at the time of the crash, especially for deliveries or for-hire driving. Even when the personal policy responds, its limits are usually far below what a serious injury claim demands. When the personal policy denies or runs out, the injured party sues the business under vicarious liability, the rule that an employer answers for its workers on the job. Hired and non-owned auto is the layer that pays for the business when the employee's own policy will not.
No. Standard hired and non-owned auto is liability only, so it pays for injury or property damage your driver causes to other people but never repairs the rented or borrowed vehicle they were driving. You have two ways to cover that vehicle. One is to add hired auto physical damage to your policy, which the carrier switches on by listing a physical-damage covered-auto symbol on the declarations. The other is to buy the rental company's collision damage waiver at the counter. Many businesses assume one of these is in place. They only learn it is not after a rented truck comes back damaged, so settle which path you are using before you sign the rental agreement.
Usually yes. The lack of company cars is the very reason the exposure hides. If any employee ever drives a personal car to the bank, a client, a job site, or a delivery, the business can be sued for a crash that happens on the clock. A general liability policy will not respond, because auto losses are excluded from GL. Hired and non-owned auto fills that gap, typically as a low-cost endorsement on a business owners policy or commercial auto policy. The premium is modest precisely because there are no owned vehicles to rate, but the liability it covers can reach six or seven figures.
It is added as an endorsement rather than bought as a standalone policy. On a commercial auto policy, coverage is activated by listing ISO Symbols 8 and 9 on the declarations, which turn on hired and non-owned auto liability respectively. On a business owners policy, the carrier offers a hired and non-owned auto endorsement that bolts the same liability onto the package. Either way the coverage shares the underlying liability limit rather than carrying its own. The right structure depends on whether the business also owns vehicles. A business with a fleet adds the symbols to its commercial auto policy, while a business with none usually endorses its BOP.
No, and the gap is worth understanding because the two policies have to work side by side. Picture an employee on a delivery run who hits another car and is hurt in the same crash. Workers' compensation steps in for your employee, paying their medical bills and lost wages as a workplace injury. Hired and non-owned auto steps in for the other driver, paying that third party's injury and property claim. Each line covers a different person, so a business with people driving for work generally needs both in place rather than relying on one to stretch across both roles.
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