A farm plate lifts the driver rules off the truck. It lifts nothing off the insurance.

Commercial auto

Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.

Without it — A truck registered to the farm and hauling its own crop, livestock, machinery or supplies is a private carrier. It needs commercial auto liability, and a farm plate does not change that.

Motor truck cargo

The freight itself while you are hauling it. Separate from the liability on the truck.

Without it — Your own grain in your own truck is your own loss until the elevator signs for it. Cargo coverage on a farm truck is optional in a way it never is for hire, and the value of a full load is the way to decide.

Auto physical damage

Damage to your own tractor and trailer. Primary liability pays for what you do to everyone else and nothing for your equipment, so without this a rollover you caused leaves you paying off a truck you can no longer run.

Without it — A grain truck that works six weeks a year and sits the rest can be written on a seasonal or stated-value basis. Tell the underwriter how it is actually used.

Hired & non-owned auto

Covers vehicles the business does not own but its people drive on the job: rentals, and employees running errands in their own cars. Their personal auto policy will not cover a business trip, and the claim lands on the business. Pricing depends entirely on HOW it is bought: as an endorsement on a general liability policy we write, HNOA often costs a few hundred dollars; as a stand-alone (monoline) policy it runs $2,500 to $5,000, and association practitioner programs (CPH, CM&F and similar) generally cannot take the endorsement, so "add HNOA to my existing policy for $300-$800" is usually not a real option. A package carrying GL, professional liability and HNOA together is typically cheaper than the monoline.

Without it — A custom harvester or a neighbor's truck moving your crop is a vehicle you do not own doing your work, and it is outside the farm auto policy unless this is on it.

Truckers general liability

General liability written for a motor carrier: the yard, the dock, loading and customer premises. The auto policy answers for the vehicle; this answers for everything else.

Without it — Loading at an elevator or a feedlot happens off the truck and outside the auto policy. If you haul for hire, the shipper's contract will ask for this by name.

Workers compensation

Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.

Without it — A hired driver at harvest is an employee, and a rollover with him in the cab is a workers comp claim before it is anything else.

My truck has farm plates. Do I need commercial insurance at all?

Yes. The federal covered farm vehicle rule applies to a truck plated as a farm vehicle, driven by the farm's owner, family or employees, and used to carry agricultural commodities, livestock, machinery or supplies to or from the farm, and it exempts that truck from the commercial driver's license, drug testing, medical examination, hours of service and inspection rules. It says nothing about insurance, and a personal auto policy on a truck that hauls your crop to market is a claim waiting for a denial. What you need is commercial auto written for a private farm carrier, which is priced for what a grain truck actually does and is not the for-hire trucking policy.

Where does the exemption stop?

At the property line of your own operation. The federal definition ends with the words "not used in for-hire motor carrier operations", and a truck rated over 26,001 pounds keeps the exemption only within its state of registration or within 150 air miles of the farm across a state line. The practical test is the load, and the load has to be your own product, your inputs, your animals or your equipment. The day you carry someone else's grain for money, you are a for-hire motor carrier with the authority, the filing and the policy that go with it.

Insurance for a new motor carrier authority

I haul for the neighbors at harvest. Does that change anything?

It changes everything, and it is the most common way a farm truck ends up uninsured. Hauling a neighbor's crop for pay is for-hire trucking, whatever the plate says. The farm auto policy is written for a private carrier and will exclude it, so the neighbor's grain, the neighbor's claim and the highway liability on that trip all fall outside it. If the hauling is regular, the answer is a for-hire policy with cargo, and it often costs less than the farmer expects because the radius is short and the season is known. If it is a favor once a year, tell us, because there are ways to write it and none of them start with not mentioning it.

Is a farm semi insured differently from a grain truck?

On the same policy and on different terms. A tractor and hopper pulling to the elevator is rated on the radius, the driver and the months it runs, and the physical damage limit on a tractor is the number that moves the price. The exemption above still applies to it if the plate and the use qualify, but a semi is far more likely to cross a state line or to end up pulling for hire, which is when the exemption and the policy both stop fitting. Tell the underwriter where the elevator is and who else's grain the trailer has ever carried.

Livestock hauling insurance

What does a farm truck insurance application ask for?

The applications for farm truck businesses ask about 4 things above all: what commodities do you haul; do you haul full truckloads or less than truckload; are your vehicles equipped with gps, cameras, or other tracking devices; list all losses and accidents from the last three years. Have your vehicle information including year, make, model, and current value for each truck and trailer and three years of loss runs from your current and prior insurance companies ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.