Underwriters of commercial auto insurance have in the past shied away from extending the insured's physical damage insurance to temporary substitute autos; even though underwriters of personal auto insurance have willingly extended the coverage to nonowned and temporary substitute vehicles. The commercial underwriter's argument — totally different from personal auto practice — is that the insured vehicle that is temporarily out of commission is, nevertheless, still subject to most of the physical damage exposures, e.g., fire, flood, wind, or even collision, and that extending coverage to a substitute would serve to double their exposure. Another explanation is that a “commercial vehicle” can be anything from an old pickup to a rig costing a great deal of money, and the underwriter could never know the limits of the exposure under a contract insuring any “commercial auto” automatically.

It is easy to empathize with the employer's feeling of responsibility for the lack of insurance. The employee, though, is the person who elected to do without coverage, and it should not be up to the employer to shield the employee from the consequences of that decision. That fact, however, won't resolve the employer's “guilt” in this case.

There is no easy way to cover this physical damage exposure. If the employer wants to make sure his employee's auto is insured against collision damage when he borrows it, he would have to purchase hired car physical damage coverage and have that coverage amended to include autos that are hired, rented, or borrowed from employees. It might be difficult to find an underwriter willing to do this. Symbol 9 does apply to autos owned by employees, but it is set aside for liability coverage only. It might be used to cover this type of exposure if an underwriter were willing to do so.