Business · Commercial auto
Personal auto stops where the business use starts
A personal auto policy is built for commuting, errands, and the household. It is the wrong contract when the vehicle is titled to a business, when you are paid to haul goods, or when an employee is driving it for the company. The exclusion is not a technicality. After a crash, the carrier looks at who owned the vehicle and what it was doing, not at the fact that it is still a car.
If the title is in an LLC or a corporation, most personal writers decline the car or require a commercial policy. The business is the named insured the lawsuit will name. A personal policy names the household. Those are different defendants and different limits. Texas personal liability floor is 30/60/25. That number is the private-passenger minimum, not the limit a commercial auto policy or a motor-carrier filing has to show. Do not treat them as the same rule.
A Form E, and a federal filing such as an MCS-90 where one is required, is proof filed with the state or the federal government. It is not the policy. The policy is what pays, up to its limits and subject to its exclusions. The filing is what tells the regulator that financial responsibility exists. Buying the filing without reading who is the named insured, which vehicles are scheduled, and whether employees are covered is how a business discovers the gap after the crash.
Where to start: Texas commercial auto, Texas commercial auto requirements, and the product page commercial auto insurance. Business package around it: business insurance. Personal limits, for contrast: how much car insurance in Texas and insurance limits. Colorado: commercial auto in Colorado. What sits above the auto limit: excess liability versus umbrella. The business lawsuit that is not the car: small-business liability. Personal product, so you can see what it is not: Texas auto.
