Moving Company Insurance

Comprehensive business insurance for moving companies may include the following coverages:

• Commercial General Liability (CGL) Insurance: Also called general liability insurance or slip-and-fall insurance, CGL covers your moving business from claims related to third-party bodily injuries and third-party property damage resulting from your company’s usual activities. For instance, if a door frame at a customer’s home is damaged by your moving crew while lifting a large piece of furniture in or out of the building, CGL may cover the cost of repairing or replacing the damaged door frame.

• Cargo Insurance: Cargo insurance protects your moving company’s goods against damage, loss, or theft while in transit. It applies while the goods are in your care, custody, and control. Depending on the insurer, some modes of transportation may not be covered, such as those by sea or air. Additionally, some policies do not cover transporting hazardous materials, chemicals, or highly valuable items like fine art.

• Commercial Auto Insurance: All moving companies and business owners should have commercial auto insurance to protect their moving vans and other vehicles used for business purposes, including trailers. Commercial auto protects your moving company from financial losses due to third-party bodily injuries and third-party property damages involving your vehicle if you’re involved in an accident or collision for which you are at fault. 

You can add optional coverages to a commercial auto policy to enhance your financial protection. Among the most popular options are collision or upset insurance (pays to repair or replace your moving van following a collision with another vehicle or a stationary object regardless of who’s at fault), comprehensive insurance (covers damages to your moving van caused by extreme weather, fire, theft or vandalism), or all-perils insurance (a combination of collision and comprehensive coverages).

If your business has five or more moving vans or trucks, purchasing a commercial fleet vehicle insurance policy might be more economical.

• Professional Liability Insurance: Professional liability insurance, or errors and omissions (E&O) insurance, covers your moving company for claims or allegations of professional negligence, mistakes, misrepresentation, misconduct, and failing to deliver a service as promised. It is designed to cover your legal fees, settlements, and customer damages from such claims.

• Inland Marine Insurance: Inland marine insurance, also called heavy equipment insurance or tools and equipment insurance, protects high-end, expensive equipment or items transported by land or temporarily stored in third-party storage facilities. It protects them from damage or loss due to theft, vandalism, or collisions. Inland marine insurance complements cargo insurance during a move.

• Commercial Property Insurance: Commercial property insurance covers your moving company’s office, warehouse, business contents (computers, office equipment, furniture) and inventory from losses and damages caused by fire, water, natural disasters, theft and vandalism. 

• Cyber Liability Insurance: All businesses need cyber liability insurance to cover losses from cyber-attacks or data breaches. If your moving company has a website, uses email, a point-of-sale (POS) system, and stores customer information on a hard drive, server, or in the cloud, you need cyber liability insurance. It’s designed to pay for legal advice, notification and crisis management expenses, credit monitoring fees, and financial losses sustained due to a systems outage following a cyber-attack.