Trucking GL Insurance FAQ

A commercial general liability (CGL) policy for trucking covers bodily injury and property damage claims NOT caused by your vehicle — premises liability, operations during loading/unloading, completed operations after delivery, advertising injury, and contractual liability assumed in broker agreements. It is separate from commercial auto and works alongside it to cover the exposures your auto policy excludes.

No. GL and commercial auto cover fundamentally different exposures. Commercial auto covers vehicle accidents — liability for hitting another vehicle, your truck's physical damage, medical payments from vehicle accidents, uninsured motorist. GL covers non-vehicle claims: premises injuries, loading/unloading operations, post-delivery claims, and contractual indemnification. Broker-carrier agreements typically require you to carry both.

The general aggregate is the maximum your GL carrier pays across all claims in one policy year (excluding products/completed operations, which has its own separate aggregate). With $2M general aggregate, if you have three claims totaling $2.1M, the carrier pays $2M and you're responsible for the rest. Individual claims are still subject to the $1M per-occurrence limit — two separate caps working together.

Completed operations coverage responds to claims that arise AFTER your delivery or service is complete and your truck has left. For freight brokers, this is critical — your exposure to shippers doesn't end when the carrier drops the load. If a shipper discovers damage or injury resulting from how the delivery was handled, that claim falls under completed operations. Brokers who don't have this coverage face uncovered claims from completed carrier deliveries.

Broker-carrier agreements include indemnification clauses — if the carrier's operations cause injury or damage, the broker may be named in the lawsuit. Requiring carriers to carry GL with the broker listed as additional insured means the carrier's GL defends the broker in pass-through claims. This is standard contractual risk transfer — it protects the broker's business and ensures the carrier is financially able to handle claims arising from their operations.

Contact us with the broker or shipper's full legal name and address. We process the additional insured endorsement and issue an updated certificate — same day for existing clients. Additional insureds are listed on your ACORD certificate of insurance. For future brokers or shippers, the 24/7 certificate portal at contractorschoiceagency.com/certificates lets you add and download certificates any time without calling.

Standard freight brokers require $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate. Large 3PLs and asset-based carriers operating broker divisions typically require $1M/$2M to $2M/$4M. Major retail shippers (Walmart, Amazon Freight) often require $2M/$4M or higher. Always read your broker-carrier agreement — or send it to us and we'll confirm your limits are sufficient before you sign or bind.

Yes — GL and commercial auto are separate policies that can be written independently. If you're adding a second truck, starting a freight broker business, or need GL while awaiting MC authority to bind commercial auto, we can write GL separately. That said, we recommend writing both through CCA so we can do a gap analysis and confirm there are no uncovered exposures.

Same day. Once your GL policy binds, we issue the ACORD certificate immediately — including any additional insured endorsements. Existing clients access the 24/7 certificate portal at contractorschoiceagency.com/certificates and download or email certificates without calling us. For new clients, we issue within hours of binding.

Trucking GL typically runs $75–$200/month depending on operation type, annual revenue, and coverage limits. Owner-operators and small carriers are typically at the lower end; freight brokers with significant revenue and large fleets are toward the higher end. Combined GL + commercial auto programs often get better combined pricing. Submit a quote request and we'll provide exact pricing from our carrier partners.