Insurance Requirements on Big Commercial Trucks

If you’ve been involved in a commercial truck accident in San Antonio, Texas, there’s a good chance you sustained serious injuries and racked up major medical expenses. You’re probably wondering how much money you’ll receive from the insurance companies, and you may be unfamiliar with insurance requirements on big commercial trucks. Our attorneys have compiled the information that you need to know in the aftermath of your wreck.

What are the Insurance Requirements on big Commercial Trucks?

In 2013, a new bill was introduced to better protect the public from large commercial vehicles on the roadway. This law is designed to increase the minimum amount of liability insurance coverage that trucking companies must have here in the United States.

Commercial truck drivers are required to have commercial personal injury protection, which is sometimes referred to as PIP insurance or “no fault insurance.” This insurance covers all injury-related costs, regardless of which driver was at fault for an accident.

PIP insurance can be used to cover the following:

• Medical expenses
  • Including treatments, surgeries, procedures, appointment costs, medication, and medical devices necessitated by the injury
• Lost income resulting from disability
• Rehabilitation Costs
• Funeral Costs (in the event a driver is killed in the accident)

Back in 1980, Congress set an amount of minimum insurance requirement to protect the motoring public from negligent drivers and the trucking companies.

The minimum insurance requirements for commercial truck drivers vary from state to state, and they also vary based on the type of freight hauled. For example, hazardous freights have the higher minimum insurance requirements than non hazardous freights, and heavier non-hazardous freight has higher minimum requirements than lighter loads. Explosive freights have the highest minimum requirements ($5 million for class A and B explosives).

Many companies require set liability limits regardless of what type of freight material is being transported, but others are content to abide by the bare minimum legal limits.

The minimum legal insurance requirements for commercial trucks don’t always function as intended. In order for the minimum insurance requirements to perform as they were originally intended by Congress, the Secretary of Transportation should increase the levels to a sum or an amount that provide appropriate compensation to catastrophic crash victims. Only then will the minimum insurance requirements function effectively.

With any luck, Congress will work together and take the necessary action to increase the minimum limits of insurance for the trucking industry. Large trucks continued to catastrophically injure and kill thousands of victims each year, and the victims of these truck crashes should be adequately compensated, no matter what.

At Carabin Shaw in San Antonio, our experienced attorneys can guide you through the legal process surrounding PIP insurance, and can help you file a personal injury lawsuit if your medical expenses exceed the amount of coverage held by the at-fault commercial truck driver. Our San Antonio truck insurance attorneys can fight to get you compensation for the medical expenses incurred due to your accident – so you don’t have to fight the big insurance companies on your own.

Our skilled attorneys at the firm of Carabin Shaw have a combined one hundred years of legal experience – and we want to help you in the aftermath of your wreck. Contact our San Antonio attorneys today for a free consultation at 432.620.0544 and find out what we can do for you. For more information on semi truck accidents (18-wheeler accidents), call our lawyers serving San Antonio or chat with us online today.