As a business you may rely on your employees to run errands on your behalf, visit customers or clients, or even rent vehicles for business purposes.

Consider this, a business has outside sales reps driving their own personal vehicles to make sales calls and visit customers.

One salesperson was driving their vehicle to visit a customer when she hit the stopped car in front of her at an intersection. The sales rep was cited for the accident. A lawsuit was filed by the injured party naming both the salesperson and her employer as defendants.

The salesperson’s personal auto carrier provided defense for her and the businesses hired and non owned auto insurance coverage provided defense on behalf of the business/her employer.

Now consider this, before you sent the salesperson out to the sales appointment on behalf of your company, you did not take the time to make sure that your employee had adequate personal auto insurance.

The driver of the vehicle your employee struck suffers major injuries and will require significant medical and therapeutic treatment and your employee driver does not have the personal auto liability limits to help cover the injured parties medical expenses.

Many states have requirements when it comes to having personal auto insurance but what practices and requirements should your organization have in place to adequately protect you from financial and reputational loss?

Here are four ways to make this safe play to help protect your organization and your drivers:

1- Create a plan for running motor vehicle records or MVR’s. The plans should require that you:

• Run MVR’s at the time of hire or before you allow an employee to drive on your company’s behalf.

• Run MVR’s at least annually for employees that drive regularly.

• If your organization participates in a monitored driver safety program MVRs should also be obtained on drivers who exhibit repeat driving offenses.

2- Determine MVR acceptability. In general, drivers with more than two minor moving violations in the last three years or drivers with any major moving violations in the last five years should be considered ineligible.

3- Verify adequate personal insurance limits at least annually. All drivers who drive their vehicles on your behalf should maintain the insurance limits of at least 100/300 thousand personal auto liability limits.

4- Train your staff on appropriate driving behaviors. Your specific training needs depend on vehicle type, use, and frequency but all drivers that drive on your behalf should receive annual distracted driving training at a very minimum.

Help make your employee drivers safer on the road so you can maintain focus on your businesses primary mission. A simple company errand or routine driving by employees on behalf of your company can be a major risk exposure for your business.

Need help developing a Hired and Non-Owned Auto Liability Best Practices plan for your business? Contact me today for resources.