How Does Towing And Roadside Assistance Work?

Hey guys, I'm Hunter Nelson, insurance. I'm going to get into how towing coverage works for trucking policy. Let's get into it. So I've ran into this a couple times now where a lot of people have a common misconception on towing coverage for trucking. So just to give you guys kind of an idea here, right off the bat, there's, there's a couple different types of towing coverage. You've got towing on your physical damage policy, which quote unquote, the full coverage, right, that's going to cover you in an insurable accident. So if you get into an accident or if it's anything that's insurable, where insurance would come into play. Now towing coverage from the physical damage will tow you from there. There is roadside assistance that's going to help you in the case of a non insurable accident or non insurable claim. Whereas your engine goes out on the side of the road, you get a crazy flat tire, whatever the case is. But a lot of people seem to think that it's going to take you from shop to shop because you got a warranty or you want to go to this shop or anything on those lines. It is called roadside assistance for a reason. It's when you're on the roadside, it's when something happens there and you're getting towed to the nearest shop. Some policies, they're going to be roadside since policies that are better than others where they might tow you an extra 20 miles, 30 miles or whatever the case may be to a shop that'll, that'll work with your warranty. But you know, if you're 900 miles away, whatever case is, you're hundreds of miles away and you want to go from this shop to this shop, that's not going to happen because their towing coverage or the roadside assistance is towing you to the nearest shop that'll work on you whether your warranty is there or not. So if you got to go to a different one from there, you will have to pay a pocket. So let's just kind of back up here and get back into those, those two types of towing coverage. So you got towing on your physical damage, again, this insurable accident, blah, blah, blah. But you, you know, some of these companies don't even offer towing. And so you're going to want to make sure you're asking your agent, guys, hey, does my physical damage policy cover towing? Because claim example right now is a guy got ran out the road tipped over. I want to say it was like 19 grand to get towed 29 miles. So it was $19,000. And thank the Lord he had towing to get him to his nearest body shop to get his truck fixed. So towing can be stupid expensive. But the thing is is you want to make sure that your policy even has towing. So I've been reading some of the policies and some of these guys who have towing, some of the big guys like Geico for example, maybe not even have, will not even have towing on their policy. Some of them, like Canal, are going to not specify a number in there, but it's going to be a towing cost to get you to a dealership or a repair shop that is nearest by. And then their scenario too is in the policy is if it's in a reasonable distance, a. I can't think of the correct word like a tow shop that might cover your warranty or like a specified tow shop or a mechanic shop, you know. So Canal's got really good policy and some of them have $10,000 per truck, $5,000 per trailer. So as you can see right there, I mean, those are three very, very different examples. On the physical damage side, again, none of this stuff is going to cover you if your engine blows out or a tire goes flat and you're stuck on side of the road. That is towing for physical damage. In other words, comp inclusion, in other words, full coverage. So make sure you guys are asking your agent what's what they have there. If you're with somebody who you don't even think has towing, like maybe Geico, for example, give us a shout and we'll put you with somebody like Canal or anybody else in the sun who will have towing. Another thing too is, you know, I've got another video on physical damage insurance. Physical damage can sometimes be expensive and physical damage is really just a quick math problem to figure out what your insurance rate is. They just take your TIV, which is your total insured value. So your truck plus your trailer plus your whole fleet, say it's $100,000, for example. They're gonna take you times a rate. So if that rate's above 5, you're probably not getting a great deal. If it is below 5, great. But just take your time to your rate. So let's say you get a 6% rate. Great. You go find somewhere else that offers a 3% rate. And a lot of these companies that offer straight up only physical damage, maybe they offer cargo, have limits up to $25,000 in towing. So those are high limits. These companies who specialize in physical damage coverage can get you cheaper insurance and can get your towing limits way up there. Now, getting into roadside assistance. Roadside assistance, you know, again is if you're on the roadside, it's not if you're already in the shop. It's not if you rolled into home and now you got to get to the shop. It's I'm on the side of the road, I need to get towed somewhere. Now the most common form or policy language for this stuff is they're going to tow you to the nearest shop. That will work on you whether your warranty comes in play or not. Up to 50 miles or $5,000, whatever comes first. That might not sound fantastic, you know, if you're on the middle of nowhere, not work real great. So there are companies who offer straight up just roadside assistance. There are some who have way better policies. But if you can get something like canal, where you know, just their towing program will take anywhere with no limit or no mile radius, but just to a reasonable shop nearby, that's great. But just make sure you also ask those questions on your roadside assistance policy. You know, how far can I go? What's the limit? Because again, you know, granted, $19,000 is a lot, but you're also tipped over. You know, towing can add up pretty dang quick. So make sure you guys ask your, your agent questions on that stuff. If you guys are not sure. I've read through a lot of policies. I know a lot of the big carriers are a lot of the big insurance companies what they offer towing. So you guys got any questions, let me know. I've got a blog on this thing too. Towing's a big deal. I think it's a lot. I think it's overlooked by a lot of truckers just because I think it's covered by their quote unquote full coverage. I should be good, right? But a lot of people don't realize that. Don't get it mixed up with. With. Don't get it mixed up with, you know, shop to shop. Last thing I got to say real quick is if you're needing to go shop to shop your warranties, hey, I'm only taking this location. Best luck, I'll give you a thousand miles away. See if you can find a warranty that's got towing in it. There are some extended warranties out there that will offer towing. If your warranty doesn't have it and you're worried and they're only going to service one shop in the country and you're traveling thousand mile radius, heck yeah. Final warranty is going to have towing in it because there's dang near no insurance companies can offer this stuff. So make sure you got towing in your policy or in your warranty. Make sure you know what kind of towing coverage you got. Right now, there's two types of towing coverage. Don't forget that. I'm Hunter with Nelson Insurance. Let me know if you guys got any questions and I'm happy to help. Sa.