Trucking Insurance – It Covers More Than You Think (and more than some adjusters will admit).

If you’ve been injured in a collision with a tractor-trailer, one of the most important decisions you will make is who you hire as your attorney. I’m not kidding. There are a lot of car wreck attorneys who think they can handle truck wrecks the same way they handle a car wreck case. They’re wrong. Truck wrecks are different.

One example of this difference lies in the insurance and endorsements required to operate a commercial motor vehicle. Depending on your state, in a car wreck case, the at-fault driver may only have the “state minimum” coverage required to insure their vehicle. In states like Arkansas, Ohio, and Tennessee that minimum is $25,000 dollars per person for bodily injury liability coverage. If that sounds low, it is because it is.

Trucking insurance is different. First, for commercial vehicles hauling freight the minimum insurance required is seven hundred and fifty thousand ($750,000.00) dollars – no matter what state they are operating in. That’s a whopping thirty-seven and a half (37.5) times the minimum requirement for non-commercial vehicles in those states I mentioned earlier. But the amount of coverage typically available is not the only difference between car insurance and trucking insurance.

Have you heard of or experienced a car insurance claim being denied because the defendant’s car “wasn’t listed on the policy”? I have. Trucking insurance doesn’t work that way. When an insurer agrees to insure a trucking company, they are required to sign an MCS-90 form. The MCS-90 form is an Endorsement for Motor Carrier Policies of Insurance for Public Liability under Sections 29 and 30 of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. When an insurance company signs this endorsement, they are agreeing to pay, within the limits of the policy, “any final judgment recovered against the insured for public liability resulting from negligence in the operation, maintenance or use of [commercial] motor vehicles […] regardless of whether or not each motor vehicle is specifically described in the policy and whether or not such negligence occurs on any route or in any territory authorized to be served by the insured or elsewhere. (emphasis added).

https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/2024-08/MCS-90%20Form.pdf

So, why does this matter and why is it important for you and your attorney to know? It is

important because not knowing it could cost you your case.

In my first year of practice, I learned (or rather re-learned) an age-old lesson: knowledge is power. I was working at my very first law firm in Memphis, Tennessee with another more seasoned attorney whom I still consider a mentor and good friend. One morning, we got a call from a potential client who was injured in a trucking wreck and who had just had her case rejected by a very well-known national law firm. She had been travelling down the highway after work one night when a pair of tractor trailer tires broke free from their trailer at highway speeds, travelled across the grass median, into our client’s lane of travel, and struck the front end of her small sedan – totaling it and injuring her. It was a clear liability case, but her old firm had rejected her case because the trucking company’s insurance denied the claim. The insurance adjuster claimed that the tractor-trailer involved in the collision “wasn’t listed” on the insurance policy.

Luckily, we knew that couldn’t be true. I had just returned from my first time attending a

symposium hosted by the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys (“ATAA”) where I had learned about the power of the MCS90 endorsement. With that knowledge, we knew that it didn’t matter whether the tractor-trailer was listed on the policy – they were on the hook to pay any final judgment we recovered against them within their policy limits. Shortly after we signed the case, I called the trucking company’s insurance. Their adjuster tried the same song and dance that he had with the other firm. It didn’t work. I asked him if he knew what an MCS90 form was.

His reply?

“Yes, I do.”

“…….”

“Send us a demand.”

The case settled about a month later for several times our client’s medical costs. Knowledge is power. If you or a loved one have been injured in a collision with a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of a highway, you should contact an experienced trucking attorney as soon as possible. Connect with Altizer Law to ensure your claim is managed with the attention and experience it deserves.

Dial 540.345.2000 or contact us today to start your journey towards fair compensation.