Most people believe that insuring a truck and a car are the same thing, which can’t be further from the truth. Sure, insurance for both will protect you against collision and acts of nature or vandalism, so yes, there are similarities, but the differences are noteworthy.
The first and key difference is that most trucks have commercial insurance. Insurance companies generally provide commercial insurance for trucks because most trucks are used for commercial applications. The way insurance companies see it is, if you have a truck, you are going to be using it for commercial work. There are different definitions of commercial application of course; even something such as delivering groceries can be considered commercial application. Trucks can be used for almost anything and everything, including carrying heavy cargo loads. Most trucks on the road are owned by commercial companies, and enterprises.
Another major difference is the size of a truck. A truck is a huge vehicle, almost secondary to none on the road, except for maybe a bus. Due to their massive size and load carrying abilities, trucks are powered by large power plants. In time of an accident a truck can cause massive damage to anything it collides with. If a hatchback and a truck are involved in a high speed crash, its almost completely likely that the hatchback will be totaled.
In the case of cars, insurance covers the security of the person and the vehicle, by taking care of medical bills, repair bills, and property damage. However for a truck things are different. A truck is most likely to be carrying cargo at the time of the accident, and this need to be taken into consideration too. In the event of destruction of the vehicle and the cargo, the company would need to pay for both.
If incase the cargo is inflammable, or dangerous in any way, it can pose a serious threat to the other vehicle involved in the accident, the two drivers, and of course anyone in close proximity.
All this translates to higher risk for the insurance company. In the event of an accident of a private car, the insurance company will only be required to pay a fraction of what they will need to pay if a truck was involved in the accident. The insurance company is at a higher risk to suffer a loss, and this risk will need to be shared by the owner of the truck in the form of a relatively much higher premium.
A major defining factor is the experience level of the driver, if the driver ha s a lot of experience and a clean record, the premium can be lowered, however if the driver is either in-experienced or had a bad record, the premium amount will be much higher.
If the truck is mainly use in areas with good roads and less traffic, the insurance premium gets reduced, and alternatively increases if the truck is primarily used in areas with bad infrastructure and a lot of other trucks where the chances of an accident are higher.
The cargo that the truck carries can also have a grave effect on the premium, trucks that carry heavy loads of expensive cargo will obviously attract a much higher premium as compared to a truck which carries light loads of a lower value. Trucks carrying gas and other inflammable cargo will attract the highest insurance premium.
