When the Vehicle You Hit Is Someone's Workplace: Vans, Crews and 30/60/15

Most examples of minimum coverage imagine a private car with one driver. A contractor's van, a landscaping truck with a crew, or a delivery vehicle with a loaded cargo area is a different kind of claim, because a single impact touches a business, its customers and several workers at once. All of it is measured against the same three numbers.

Who can claim against you

• The vehicle's owner, often a business, for repair or replacement and for losing the use of the vehicle.
• Whoever owns the tools, equipment or cargo inside. It is all property of others.
• Each injured worker, for their own injuries.
• The workers' employer, for what it paid them, as explained below.

The ledger

A worked example

You run a stop sign and hit a crew truck carrying a driver and two workers. Suppose the truck's repair estimate alone is $15,000. Your property limit is used up before the tools in the back, the materials for the day's job, or the days the truck sits in a shop are counted, and every one of those is a claim against you.

On the injury side, suppose the driver's claim is $35,000, one worker's is $25,000 and the other's is $50,000. The per-person cap trims the first and third to $30,000 each, and the three capped amounts together still exceed the $60,000 per-accident limit. The pool is divided through the claims process, and the balances are claims against you. The figures are illustrations; the structure is the statute's.

The workers' compensation layer

Labor Code 3852 says an employee's claim for workers' compensation does not affect their right of action for damages against anyone other than their employer. It also says an employer that pays, or becomes obligated to pay, compensation may make a claim or bring an action against that third person, and recover what it paid, including wages paid to the employee. In plain terms, you may hear from an injured worker and from their employer about the same injury, and both draw on your same limits.

Myth and fact

Myth: "Their employer's insurance covers the workers, so my policy is not involved."
Fact: Under Labor Code 3852, workers' compensation does not end the worker's claim against you, and the employer can pursue you for what it paid.

Myth: "A business vehicle has its own insurance, so the repair is not my problem."
Fact: If its insurer pays first, it can seek repayment from the at-fault driver; see when the other driver's insurer comes after you.

At the scene

1. Exchange the information Vehicle Code 16025 requires, including the registered owner's address, which for a work vehicle is often a company.
2. Photograph the vehicle's markings, the cargo area and the people involved.
3. Report the crash to your insurer promptly; business claims tend to arrive quickly and with paperwork.

If you drive daily among work trucks and vans, the property limit is the first number to look at. Price higher property and injury limits here next to your current 30/60/15.