Specialty transport insurance, by the operation you run

A wrecker, a wheelchair van, and a charter coach buy from the same short list of commercial auto coverages, but a different regulator draws the line around each one: a state licensing agency for towing, a Medicaid contract for medical transport, a weight and route test for couriers, a seat count for buses, and a city ordinance for limousines. Each page below is written for one kind of operation and opens with the rule that defines it. Pick the closest one; the questions at the bottom sort out the operations that sit between two.

Tow truck insurance

Operation types on this site

Who each page is written for, and the regulator or document that decides which class the operation belongs to. The page itself carries the citations.

Tow truck
Wreckers, rollbacks, and recovery units doing consent calls, private-property tows, and police-directed incident work.

In Texas the class is defined by TDLR, which permits each truck on its own and reads the insurance condition out of the licensing statute.
NEMT and medical transport
Wheelchair vans, stretcher cars, and sedans carrying Medicaid riders to appointments and back.

The class is defined by the Medicaid contract: the broker, managed transportation organization, or health-plan vendor agreement is where the limit is written, because the federal floor names none.
Courier and delivery
Parcel, specimen, and last-mile delivery, often run on contractor drivers in vans the company does not own.

The class is defined by two FMCSA thresholds: the federal minimums reach a courier only as a for-hire property carrier crossing state lines in a vehicle rated at 10,001 pounds or more.
Bus
Charter and tour coaches, shuttle fleets, school bus contractors, and congregations that run a van.

The class is defined by seating capacity, counted including the driver: the federal schedule splits at 15 seats, and Texas registration attaches above 15.
Limo and livery
Chauffeured sedans, stretches, luxury SUVs, and small party vehicles seating 15 or fewer.

The class is defined by the city: at that seat count a limousine sits under every state and federal threshold, so the permit and its insurance condition come from a municipal ordinance where one exists.
Waste and logging
Refuse routes, roll-off and front-load collection, transfer runs, and log trucks working from the tract to the mill.

The class is defined by the material rather than the truck: household waste sits outside federal hazardous waste law by definition, hazardous waste pulls a hauler into it even inside one state, and timber gets its own state permit.
Heavy equipment
Excavators, loaders, dozers and cranes, owned or rented, working on a site and moving between them.

The class is defined by a seam between two policy forms: whether a machine counts as an auto or as mobile equipment decides which form answers, and hauling it is a third question again.

Who sets the floor

Every operation on this list can answer to as many as three governments for the same vehicle, and the insurance minimum comes from whichever one actually reaches it. The federal rules in 49 CFR Part 387 are written for for-hire work that crosses a state line, property in a heavy vehicle on one side and passengers on the other, and a trip that starts or ends out of state counts as interstate even when your leg of it does not. Most operators in this vertical never trigger that rule, because their work stays home.

Inside one state, the requirement belongs to whichever agency issues the permit or holds the contract, and that agency changes with the vehicle. Texas is the clearest example because it uses a different one for each class: a licensing department for wreckers, the motor vehicle department for large passenger vehicles, the health agency and its contractors for Medicaid rides. Underneath the state, a city or county can register the trucks that perform nonconsent tows in its territory and can license limousine service outright, each with an insurance condition of its own. The Texas hub lays out all of those agencies for one state, and each Texas page reads the statute or contract where its amount is written.

The coverages do not change with the map; the required amounts and the paperwork do. Read the national page for your operation first, then the Texas page if you work there, or start at the overview.

One question arrives from every page on this list and belongs to none of them: what happens once there is more than one vehicle. That answer sits in the policy form rather than in any regulator's rule, in the covered auto symbols that decide which units each coverage reaches and whether the one you bought this morning is covered yet. Fleet insurance reads those symbols, and applies whether your second vehicle is a wrecker, a van, or a bus.

Frequently Asked Questions

My tow company also hauls freight across state lines. Which page is mine?

Two pages on two sites, because those are two operations under two regulators. The wrecker side is the tow truck page here: the state permit per truck, on-hook and garagekeepers, and the local registration that comes with nonconsent work. The freight side, a unit carrying goods for hire in interstate commerce under federal authority, is freight trucking, and freight trucking is covered on InsuredTruck.com rather than repeated on this site. Tell the agent about both halves, since the filings and the coverage forms for one do not satisfy the other.

We are a church that runs a passenger van. Bus page or limo page?

The bus page, which has a church van section. The seat count is the reason: a van built for more than 15 people including the driver is a commercial motor vehicle under the federal safety definitions even when nobody pays to ride, and a limousine is defined by the opposite condition, a chauffeured vehicle at 15 seats or fewer. Texas exempts from state registration a passenger vehicle run by an organization whose main purpose is not carrying passengers, and a congregation reads like that group, but the statute does not name churches, so the page tells you to confirm with TxDMV rather than assume it.

My couriers drive their own cars as contractors. Is that still the courier page?

Yes, and the contractor structure is the reason that page exists. The business auto form treats a vehicle the company leases, hires, rents, or borrows one way and a vehicle owned by an employee another, and a contractor who owns the car fits neither description on its face, so the hired and non-owned auto question has to be answered before a quote means anything. The page also walks the IRS right-to-control test, because whether a driver is an employee or a contractor decides who insures the car and whether workers compensation applies. Disclose the structure to the agent first, then read the quote.