Yes. Hired and non-owned auto (HNOA) coverage is one of the most overlooked — and most necessary — endorsements in a roofing contractor's insurance program. It covers liability arising from vehicles your company does not own: rental vehicles (hired auto) and employee-owned vehicles used for business purposes (non-owned auto). Without it, you have a liability gap that your standard commercial auto policy does not fill.
The Non-Owned Auto Exposure
Think about how your operation actually works on a daily basis. Your foreman drives his personal truck to the supply house to pick up flashing and caulk. A crew member runs to the hardware store for drill bits in his own car. Your project manager drives her personal vehicle to a client meeting. Every one of these trips creates a non-owned auto exposure for your company.
If your foreman causes a serious accident while picking up materials in his personal truck, the injured party will sue both your foreman and your company. Your foreman's personal auto policy is primary, but personal auto limits are often $100,000/$300,000 or less. A serious injury claim — spinal cord damage, traumatic brain injury — can easily reach $500,000 to $2,000,000. The amount above your foreman's personal limits falls on your company. Without HNOA coverage, there is no policy to respond. Your company pays out of pocket or faces a judgment.
The Hired Auto Exposure
Hired auto covers vehicles you rent, lease, or borrow on a short-term basis. Roofing contractors rent vehicles more often than they realize. Peak season hits, you need a sixth truck, and you rent a pickup from Enterprise for two weeks. You rent a flatbed to haul a dumpster. You rent a box truck for a large material delivery. The rental company's insurance offers, like the collision damage waiver (CDW), are expensive and limited. Your commercial auto policy covers your owned, scheduled vehicles — not rentals, unless you have hired auto coverage.
If a rented truck is involved in an accident and you lack hired auto coverage, your commercial auto policy will not respond for the liability. You are personally and corporately exposed for the full claim amount.
Contract Requirements
Most GC subcontracts and commercial project contracts require hired and non-owned auto coverage. The ACORD 25 certificate of insurance has a specific checkbox for HNOA. If your certificate cannot show this coverage, the GC will flag it as a deficiency. Some GCs will not allow you on the jobsite until the deficiency is corrected. For a coverage that costs $500 to $1,500 per year, losing a $200,000 subcontract over a missing HNOA endorsement is an expensive oversight.
How HNOA Interacts With Other Coverages
HNOA is liability-only coverage. It does not pay for physical damage to the hired or non-owned vehicle itself. If your employee wrecks his personal truck on a business errand, HNOA covers the liability to the other party but does not repair your employee's truck — that falls on his personal auto policy's collision coverage. Similarly, if you total a rental truck, HNOA pays the liability to injured third parties, but you need the rental company's CDW or a separate hired auto physical damage endorsement to cover the damage to the rental vehicle.
HNOA coverage coordinates with your umbrella policy. If you carry a $1,000,000 CSL auto liability limit with HNOA and a $2,000,000 umbrella, the umbrella sits above the HNOA coverage just as it sits above your owned auto liability. This gives you $3,000,000 in total protection for a non-owned auto claim — which is the kind of limit you need for a serious injury accident.
Implementation Steps
Adding HNOA to your commercial auto policy is straightforward. Ask your agent to endorse your existing commercial auto policy with ISO form CA 20 01 (hired auto) and CA 20 09 (non-owned auto), or the equivalent combined endorsement. The premium is typically $500 to $1,500 per year for a roofing contractor, calculated based on your annual revenue and number of employees. Given that a single uncovered non-owned auto claim could produce a six-figure judgment, this is among the highest-value, lowest-cost coverages in your program.
Also implement an internal policy requiring all employees who drive personal vehicles for business to carry minimum personal auto limits of $250,000/$500,000. This ensures the primary layer — their personal policy — provides meaningful coverage before your HNOA layer is triggered.