12.1 Business Auto Coverage Form and Covered Auto Symbols

The Business Auto Coverage Form

The Business Auto Coverage Form, current ISO edition CA 00 01 11 20, is the standard contract used to insure cars, trucks, trailers, and vans owned, hired, or borrowed by a business. Combined with a declarations page and the Common Policy Conditions (IL 00 17) and Common Policy Declarations (IL 00 21), it forms a complete policy. It is the commercial answer to a problem the Personal Auto Policy never confronts: a business may own zero vehicles one month and forty the next, while also renting trailers and borrowing employee cars.

Rather than list each vehicle by VIN, the form uses covered-auto designation symbols to describe whole categories of autos. Coverage activates only when a symbol AND a limit appear on the declarations for that coverage line.

Structure of the Form

The Nine Covered-Auto Symbols

Each coverage line carries its own symbol box, so liability can be written far broader than physical damage on the same policy.

Trap to memorize: Symbol 8 is hired, Symbol 9 is non-owned — students reverse them. Hired = the business pays to use it. Non-owned = a vehicle the business neither owns nor hires (employee's own car).

Symbols 5 and 6 do NOT add vehicles

They automatically activate state-mandated coverages. Symbol 5 makes owned autos pick up no-fault/PIP wherever required; Symbol 6 does the same for compulsory UM. They ride alongside the liability symbol, not instead of it.

Typical Symbol Pairings

Liability is usually written Symbol 1 so no third-party gap exists. Physical damage is usually Symbol 7 because the insurer must know the year, make, model, and value to set premium and pay a loss — blanket Symbol 1 physical damage is rarely offered.

The 30-Day Newly-Acquired-Auto Rule

Automatic coverage for a vehicle bought mid-term depends entirely on the symbol:

• Symbol 2 (all owned): any newly acquired auto is covered 30 days; report to keep it.
• Symbol 3 / 4: covered 30 days only if it fits the category (PP vs. other than PP).
• Symbol 7 (specifically described): NO automatic coverage — must endorse before loss.

Worked example: A contractor's form shows Symbol 4 for liability and Symbol 7 for physical damage. The contractor buys a new dump truck and crashes it 10 days later. Liability follows the truck (Symbol 4, within 30 days). Physical damage does NOT — Symbol 7 reaches only scheduled units, so the contractor pays for the truck's own damage out of pocket.

Who Is an Insured Under the Form

The insured definition is intentionally broad and is layered:

• The named insured — for ANY covered auto.
• Permissive users — anyone using a covered auto the named insured owns, hires, or borrows WITH permission.
• Anyone legally responsible for the conduct of an insured, but only to the extent of that liability (e.g., an employer liable for an employee's covered driving).

The key carve-outs: the owner of a hired or borrowed auto is generally NOT an insured (so a rental company is not an insured under your policy), and an employee is not an insured while driving the employee's OWN auto. For employee-owned cars the employer relies on Symbol 9 (non-owned), which protects the employer's vicarious liability — not the employee, whose personal auto policy is primary.

Mobile Equipment vs. Auto

Section V draws a line that controls which policy responds. Mobile equipment (bulldozers, forklifts, cranes, road graders, and other equipment not designed for road use) is generally covered under the Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy, not the auto form. But once self-propelled equipment is licensed for road use or carries permanently mounted road exposures, it can flip to 'auto.'

Trap: A forklift that overturns inside a warehouse is a CGL/mobile-equipment matter; the same forklift causing injury while driven on a public street may be an auto exposure. The decisive facts are road use and how the equipment is registered.