Commercial Auto Insurance in Texas

What Texas commercial auto insurance covers

Commercial auto insurance covers vehicles a business owns, leases, hires, or sends employees out in. The coverage parts read much like a personal auto policy, and the policy decides who is insured very differently.

What a Texas commercial auto policy carries:

• Liability for injury and property damage the business causes with a covered vehicle
• Comprehensive and collision on the vehicles the business owns or leases
• Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage for the drivers in those vehicles
• Medical payments, and towing or rental reimbursement where the business buys them

Texas Transportation Code §601.051 requires financial responsibility for a motor vehicle operated in this state, and §601.072 sets the floor at 30/60/25: $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per crash, $25,000 for property damage. That floor does not move because the title sits in a company’s name.

When a Texas vehicle becomes a commercial risk

A vehicle is a commercial risk in Texas when the title or the work makes it one, and either fact alone is enough.

Two tests, and one is usually obvious:

• Title. A vehicle titled to an LLC, a corporation, a partnership, or a trust is not a personal auto risk, whatever it is used for
• Use. A vehicle carrying goods or people for pay is a commercial risk, whoever the title names

Carriage for hire can move the legal floor too. A motor carrier registered with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles under Texas Transportation Code §643.051 carries the amount §643.101 leaves to department rule, and that rule, 43 TAC §218.16, runs from $300,000 to $5 million by vehicle type rather than 30/60/25.

A vehicle in the business name belongs on a commercial auto policy, and Aulona Insurance Group moves it there rather than declining the account.

What a personal auto policy will not pay for

A personal auto policy in Texas is written for personal, commute, and recreational driving, and it carries exclusions aimed squarely at business use.

Where a personal policy commonly stops:

• Carrying people or property for a fee, which covers rideshare, delivery, and courier work unless an endorsement is bought
• A vehicle the named insured does not own, when the vehicle belongs to the employer
• Business use the insurer was never told about, which can put the whole claim in dispute

The exposure that catches Texas employers is the employee running an errand in a personal car. The employee’s own policy responds first, the employer gets sued anyway, and a commercial policy is what answers that suit.

Hired and non-owned auto coverage in Texas

Hired and non-owned auto coverage answers claims from vehicles a business uses but does not own, which is a gap a small Texas employer can carry without knowing it.

Two exposures sit inside that one endorsement:

• Hired autos, meaning vehicles the business rents, leases, or borrows, including the rental car on a work trip
• Non-owned autos, meaning employees’ personal vehicles driven on company business

A business with no vehicles at all can still need this. A marketing agency whose staff drive their own cars to client sites has a non-owned exposure and often no policy to answer it.

The coverage usually attaches to a commercial auto policy, and on some accounts it attaches to general liability instead.

What Aulona Insurance Group can place

Aulona Insurance Group places commercial auto for Texas businesses statewide, on the same submission as the package.

Most small-business package markets in Texas will not write commercial auto. An owner with two vans typically ends up with one agent for the package and another for the vehicles, and Aulona Insurance Group writes both.

Inside the small-business program:

• Annual gross revenue under $5 million, and total W-2 payroll under $5 million
• Loss history under $20,000, with no more than two incidents in the past three years
• No prior carrier cancellation and no bankruptcy filing
• New businesses, with no minimum time in business

Luka Cenaj, the agency’s licensed principal, goes through the vehicle list, the drivers, and the radius of operation on a recorded call.

Where Aulona Insurance Group is not the right fit

Aulona Insurance Group cannot place commercial auto for every Texas operation, and an owner waiting on a certificate should hear that immediately. Vehicle type and use decide it before the eligibility band in the section above gets a look.

Vehicles and operations with no market here:

• Buses and hearses, which sit outside the personal and the commercial auto markets alike
• Recreational vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, trailers, and golf carts

Everything else turns on revenue, payroll, loss history, a prior cancellation and a bankruptcy filing, which the size band above already sets out.

What moves the price of a Texas commercial auto policy

The premium on a Texas commercial auto policy is set by the insurer, not by Aulona Insurance Group.

What a commercial auto rate is built from:

• The vehicles themselves: count, weight class, value, and what each one is built to do
• Radius of operation, where a local delivery route and a statewide route rate differently
• The drivers, their records, and how tightly the business controls who gets the keys
• The business class, because a florist’s van and a plumber’s truck carry different exposure
• The limits and deductibles chosen, plus any certificate requirement from a customer

Aulona Insurance Group publishes no premium on this site and does not rank insurers by price. The number comes from the insurer that agrees to write the risk.