Many service businesses don't own a single vehicle. Employees drive their own cars to job sites, client meetings, the bank or the supply house. When one of them causes an accident on the job, the injured person can sue the business as well as the driver. Without hired and non-owned auto coverage, the business may have nothing to defend it.
General liability policies exclude auto liability. Hired and non-owned auto fills that specific gap.
The short version
- Hired auto: liability for vehicles the business rents, leases or borrows short term.
- Non-owned auto: liability for the business when employees use their own vehicles for business purposes.
- Neither covers damage to the employee's car, and neither replaces the employee's own auto policy.