Hired & Non-Owned Auto Insurance
Also known as HNOA, hired auto liability, non-owned auto liability
Your business can be liable for a crash in a car it doesn’t own and didn’t insure. This is the coverage that closes that gap.
Hired and non-owned auto insurance covers your business’s liability when someone drives a vehicle you do not own on company business and causes an accident. Hired covers vehicles you rent, lease, or borrow; non-owned covers employees’ personal cars used for work errands, deliveries, or travel. Here is the exposure most owners miss: if an employee runs to the bank or makes a delivery in their own car and hurts someone, your business can be sued right along with the driver, and a commercial auto policy that only lists your owned vehicles will not respond. HNOA fills that gap, and it is commonly added to a general liability policy or a business owners policy for businesses that do not own vehicles at all.
Reviewed for accuracy by Mark Hutchings, Licensed Insurance Producer (NV #3600994, CA #6003400).
Who needs Hired & Non-Owned Auto?
- Businesses whose employees ever run errands, make deliveries, or travel for work in their own personal vehicles
- Companies that rent or hire cars, vans, or trucks for business trips or projects
- Offices and service firms with no company vehicles that still send staff out on the road
- Contractors and trades whose crews drive personal trucks between the shop and the job
- Real estate, home-health, and sales teams whose people drive their own cars all day for the business
What it covers
- Third-party bodily injury and property damage liability when an employee causes an accident driving a hired or non-owned vehicle for business
- Your business’s vicarious liability for an at-fault accident in an employee’s personal car used on company time
- Liability arising from rented, leased, or borrowed vehicles used for business (hired auto)
- Legal defense costs for covered claims
- Coverage that can be added to your general liability or business owners policy when you have no owned vehicles, or endorsed onto your commercial auto policy when you do
- Optional hired-auto physical damage for the rented vehicles you are responsible for
What it doesn’t cover
- Physical damage to your employee’s own vehicle, which stays on their personal auto policy
- Injuries to the employee who is driving, which fall to their auto, health, or workers’ compensation coverage
- Vehicles your business owns, which are covered by commercial auto insurance (HNOA complements it, it does not replace it)
- Accidents while the vehicle is used for personal, non-business purposes
- Delivery exposure in some forms, which carriers frequently limit or exclude, so confirm it if you deliver goods or food
- The rented vehicle’s own physical damage, unless you add hired-auto physical damage
Real claim scenarios
The quick work errand
A Reno office assistant runs to the bank in their own car during the workday and rear-ends another driver, who is injured. The injured party sues both the employee and the business. Non-owned auto liability responds to the company’s share of the claim.
The rented van
A company rents a van for a trade show and an employee backs into another vehicle in the lot. Hired auto liability covers the business’s liability for the damage to the third party.
The delivery run
A shop sends an employee to drop off an order in their personal truck and they cause an accident on the way. Because the driving was for the business, the company is named in the suit, and non-owned auto liability responds where the owned-vehicle commercial auto policy would not.
Scenarios are illustrative; actual coverage depends on your policy terms.
How it’s priced
Hired and non-owned auto is usually one of the more affordable coverages, because it is liability-only and often bundled onto a general liability or business owners policy. Carriers price it on how much driving your people do for the business: your number of employees, whether you have a delivery exposure, your revenue, and the liability limit you choose. Businesses with heavy delivery or many drivers are rated higher.
- The number of employees who drive for business and how often
- Whether your operation involves deliveries of goods or food
- Whether the coverage is added to a general liability or business owners policy, or endorsed to commercial auto
- Your annual revenue and payroll
- The liability limit you select
- Your claims and loss history
What to watch out for
- This is liability-only coverage: it does not repair the rental or your employee’s car, so add hired-auto physical damage if you rent vehicles you would be responsible for
- For non-owned autos it is typically excess over the driver’s own policy, so make sure employees who drive for you carry their own adequate auto insurance, and consider checking motor vehicle records
- Delivery of goods or food is frequently excluded or limited, so if you deliver, confirm the exposure is actually covered or arrange a form that includes it
- Personal auto policies often exclude business use, which is exactly why your business needs its own protection rather than relying on the employee’s coverage
- If your business owns vehicles you also need commercial auto; HNOA covers the hired-and-non-owned gap alongside it, not instead of it
Hired & Non-Owned Auto FAQs
We tailor Hired & Non-Owned Auto for: Construction & Contractors, Food & Beverage, Commercial Real Estate.
Get Hired & Non-Owned Auto coverage that fits
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