12.1 Business Auto Coverage Form and Covered Auto Symbols

The Business Auto Coverage Form

The Business Auto Coverage Form, filed by ISO as CA 00 01, is the standard policy used to insure the vehicles of a business that is not in the vehicle trade (those businesses use the Garage form instead). It is the commercial cousin of the Personal Auto Policy: instead of insuring a family and its private passenger autos, it insures an organization and the vehicles it uses to conduct business.

The named insured on a business auto policy is usually an entity — a corporation, partnership, or LLC — rather than a person. That single fact drives much of the form's design, because an entity acts only through its employees, drivers, and permitted users. The form must therefore decide which of those people are insureds, which vehicles are covered, and on what terms.

A complete business auto policy is assembled from several pieces: the declarations (named insured, limits, premium, and the all-important covered-auto symbols), the Business Auto Coverage Form itself, and the Common Policy Conditions and Common Policy Declarations shared with other commercial lines in a package. When the auto coverage is part of a larger commercial package, those shared conditions govern cancellation, the examination of books, and inspections across every coverage part.

Sections of the coverage form

The CA 00 01 is organized into five sections, and the exam expects you to know what each one does:

• Section I – Covered Autos: explains the nine designation symbols.
• Section II – Covered Autos Liability Coverage: the insuring agreement, who is an insured, supplementary payments, and exclusions.
• Section III – Physical Damage Coverage: comprehensive, specified causes of loss, and collision.
• Section IV – Business Auto Conditions: loss conditions (duties after loss, appraisal, subrogation) and general conditions (other insurance, two-or-more coverage forms, policy period/territory).
• Section V – Definitions.

Unlike the PAP, coverage is not automatically applied to all owned autos. Instead, each coverage line on the declarations is paired with a covered-auto designation symbol that tells you exactly which autos the line reaches.

The nine covered-auto symbols

This table is worth memorizing cold; symbol questions appear on virtually every commercial-auto exam.

Trap: Symbol 1 is the broadest for liability, but physical damage cannot be written under Symbol 1 because you cannot insure the body of an auto you do not own. Physical damage is written under Symbols 2, 3, 4, 7, or 8.

Newly acquired autos

Whether a vehicle bought mid-term is automatically covered depends on the symbol:

• Symbols 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 automatically extend to autos you acquire after the policy begins because those symbols describe categories, not a fixed list.
• Symbol 7 (Specifically Described Autos) covers an added auto only if (a) you already insure all autos you own, or the new auto replaces a covered one, and (b) you tell the insurer within 30 days that you want it covered for physical damage. Liability for a Symbol 7 replacement auto is automatic; the 30-day notice rule is the physical-damage condition.

Remember: the symbol is selected coverage-by-coverage, so a policy commonly uses Symbol 1 for liability and Symbol 7 for physical damage on the same vehicles.

Hired and non-owned exposures

Most businesses do not own every vehicle their work touches. Sales staff rent cars on trips, managers borrow vehicles, and employees run errands in their own cars. Symbols 8 and 9 exist to reach these exposures without forcing the insured to schedule autos it does not own.

• Symbol 8 (Hired Autos Only) picks up liability for autos the insured leases, hires, rents, or borrows — but not autos rented from employees or partners, which are treated separately.
• Symbol 9 (Non-Owned Autos Only) reaches autos the insured does not own, lease, hire, or borrow that are used in its business, most importantly employees' personal cars.

Neither symbol grants physical damage on the non-owned auto, because you cannot insure the body of a vehicle you do not own. A combined policy that lists Symbols 1, 8, and 9 on the liability line is the safest structure: any auto, plus an explicit reach to hired and non-owned units, leaving no liability gap for the named insured to discover after a loss.

The Nine Covered-Auto Symbols

The Business Auto Coverage Form (CA 00 01) assigns coverage by symbol entered next to each coverage on the declarations:

• 1 – Any Auto (broadest; required for liability if you want the widest protection)
• 2 – Owned Autos Only
• 3 – Owned Private Passenger Autos Only
• 4 – Owned Autos Other Than Private Passenger
• 5 – Owned Autos Subject to No-Fault
• 6 – Owned Autos Subject to Compulsory UM Law
• 7 – Specifically Described Autos (only those listed)
• 8 – Hired Autos Only
• 9 – Nonowned Autos Only (employee-owned used in the business)

Liability is usually written on Symbol 1; physical damage commonly on Symbol 7.

Newly Acquired, Hired, and Nonowned Autos

Symbol 1 (Any Auto) automatically covers newly acquired autos with no reporting requirement. Under Symbol 7 (specifically described autos), a newly acquired auto is covered for 30 days only if the insurer covers all the insured's autos of that type or the insured asks to add it.

Hired autos (Symbol 8) are vehicles leased, hired, rented, or borrowed — but not from employees or partners. Nonowned autos (Symbol 9) are autos the insured does not own, lease, or borrow that are used in the business, including employees' personal cars on company errands. The exam favorite: an employee's own car driven on a delivery is a nonowned auto (Symbol 9), and the employer's BAP responds excess over the employee's personal auto policy.