Accidents

If you’re involved in a commercial vehicle accident, chances are you’ll have a lot of unexpected expenses to deal with. This is where a commercial vehicle accident loan becomes incredibly valuable. 

These vehicle accident loans help you by providing pre-settlement funding, which can cover any immediate expenses from the accident. Let’s explore this in more detail in the guide below.

Understanding Commercial Auto Accident Loans (Legal Funding)

Commercial auto accident loans, also known as legal funding or car accident loans, provide financial assistance to people involved in commercial auto accidents. 

When you’re in a commercial auto accident, the costs can quickly add up – including medical bills and lost wages if you can’t work. These loans can help cover your expenses during this tough time. They’re designed to provide immediate financial relief, allowing you to manage your bills and daily expenses while you focus on recovery.

In many cases, people will take out a car accident loan to help see them through while waiting for a car accident settlement from the insurance company.

Consequences of Tractor-Trailer Injuries

Car accident settlement loans exist because occurrences like tractor-trailer injuries can have major consequences.

Because of the size and weight of tractor trailers, accidents involving them often result in severe injuries, including broken bones, spinal cord injuries, and traumatic brain injuries. These injuries can lead to long-term physical and emotional challenges, impacting a person’s ability to work and perform daily activities. 

Medical bills can quickly accumulate, causing financial strain. In some cases, victims may require ongoing medical treatment and rehabilitation, further adding to the financial burden. 

The psychological toll of these injuries can also be substantial, affecting one’s mental well-being and quality of life. 

This is why it’s crucial for anyone injured in tractor-trailer accidents to seek proper medical care and legal assistance to address their physical, emotional, and financial needs. Car accident claims from a personal injury lawsuit can cover these expenses, while a car accident loan can provide immediate relief.

Are Commercial Accident Loans Actually Loans?

Commercial accident loans are not actually loans in the traditional sense. Instead, they’re types of cash advances provided based on the potential car accident settlement from the case. 

This means that repayment is based on the existence of a car accident settlement. If there is no settlement, there is no obligation to repay the borrowed amount.

While it’s called a car accident loan for convenience, it doesn’t fall under lending laws, as it doesn’t involve typical loan agreements or repayment terms. It’s more of a pre-settlement car accident payment as a cash advance than it is a loan.

How Exactly Will A Commercial Accident Loan Help Me?

Taking out a car accident settlement loan can provide a valuable cash advance for some of the biggest areas impacted by an accident.

Medical Expenses

A car accident loan can help cover your medical expenses, including hospital bills, medications, and rehabilitation costs. This financial support allows you to focus on your recovery without worrying about the burden of healthcare expenses.

Mortgage or Rent Payments

In the aftermath of an accident, a car accident loan can help with paying your mortgage or rent payments. This ensures that you can maintain stability in your housing situation during your recovery period – something that’s important if the accident puts you out of work.

School or Tuition Fees

Another benefit of a car accident loan is that it can help to cover school or tuition fees. Whether it’s for yourself or your dependents, this financial assistance ensures that education remains uninterrupted despite the accident’s impact on your finances.

How Do I Qualify for Legal Funding?

If you’ve been involved in a commercial accident, then securing a car accident settlement loan can also help you get funding for your legal needs. This is important to ensure you get the legal representation you deserve in a car accident lawsuit.

Qualifying for legal funding for a car accident lawsuit generally involves three key areas.

Liability

To qualify for legal funding, it’s essential to establish liability – meaning that someone else’s negligence led to the commercial vehicle accident that you were involved in. This can involve proving that the other party breached their duty of care, resulting in the accident and your injuries.

Insurance

Another crucial factor in qualifying for legal funding is having proper commercial truck insurance coverage from the right insurance company. 

Legal funding providers often rely on the potential for a settlement or judgment to recover their funds. Therefore, it’s necessary to have coverage from an insurance company that can compensate for the damages resulting from the accident.

Damages

To qualify for legal funding, the damages resulting from the accident must be substantial enough to warrant legal action and potential compensation. 

These damages from a car accident claim could include medical expenses, lost wages, property damage, and pain and suffering. Providing evidence of these damages is essential in showing the need for financial assistance through a lawsuit loan.

How Can I Use Legal Funding for My Truck Accident?

Car accident loans and legal funding can be incredibly valuable in navigating the aftermath of a truck accident. Here are some of the main ways that a car accident lawsuit loan, or legal funding, can help you.

Covering Immediate Expenses

One way to use legal funding is to cover immediate expenses resulting from the truck accident. This can include medical bills, vehicle repairs, and other out-of-pocket costs incurred as a direct result of the accident.

Having this available as a cash advance through car accident lawsuit funding ensures your life keeps on moving without interruption.

Replacing Lost Income

If your injuries from the truck accident prevent you from working, legal funding can help replace lost income during your recovery period. 

Hiring Legal Representation

Legal funding can also be used to hire a commercial vehicle accident lawyer to advocate for your rights and pursue compensation on your behalf. 

This includes hiring a skilled attorney who can thoroughly investigate the accident, gather evidence, negotiate with insurance companies, and represent you in court.

Peace of Mind

Overall, legal funding provides peace of mind during a stressful and uncertain time.

By alleviating the immediate financial strain and providing the resources needed to pursue your case, legal funding allows you to focus on your recovery and achieve a fair outcome in your truck accident claim.

Is Getting a Commercial Accident Settlement Loan the Right Move for Me?

Deciding whether to go for car accident loans depends on your individual circumstances. If you’re facing financial strain from the accident, car accident loans can provide much-needed relief by covering these expenses upfront. 

However, it’s essential to understand how car accident loans work and to ensure a pre-settlement car accident loan is possible based on your specific situation. 

Final Thoughts

Auto accident settlement loans are always worth considering if you can secure them. Unlike traditional loans, they shouldn’t involve financial risk. When properly managed, a car accident cash advance can offer much-needed financial assistance to help you deal with the aftermath of the accident and see you through car accident lawsuits – which can be an expensive process.

Looking to purchase a new commercial vehicle after an accident? Then getting the right vehicle funding is essential. Speak to us at Mission Financial to see just how easy it is to get funding for your new semi-truck.

Several risks can put your semi-truck out of commission unexpectedly. It could get damaged in a crash, fire, hailstorm, or other natural disasters. Worse still, your semi-truck can get vandalized or stolen.

What do you do if any of these unfortunate events occur and you don’t have cash set aside to repair or replace your truck? How do you get back to business fast? This is where semi-truck physical damage insurance comes into play.

We’ve prepared this quick guide to help you understand everything you should know about physical damage trucking insurance – what is it, and what exactly does it cover? Do you need a physical damage policy?

What Is Physical Damage Insurance?

Physical damage insurance encompasses various types of trucking insurance that safeguard commercial vehicles from a range of risks while on the road. These include:

• Collision coverage: Covers repair or replacement costs if your commercial truck is damaged in a collision or overturns.
• Comprehensive coverage: Covers repairs or replacement for non-collision incidents beyond your control, such as theft, vandalism, fire, glass and windshield damage, accidents involving animals, bad weather, or other acts of nature.
• Fire and theft insurance with CAC (Combined Additional Coverage): A specialized form of comprehensive insurance for heavy vehicles, covering specific non-collision incidents like fire, theft, vandalism, floods, lightning, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, excluding windshield claims.

Most trucking companies rely on physical damage coverage to prevent business interruption and mitigate significant financial losses from unexpected events.

What Physical Damage Insurance Covers

Insurance policies differ per insurer. But nearly all physical damage insurance policies offer the following coverage options:

Roadside Assistance and Towing

Commercial vehicles break down often, and towing your vehicle after an unexpected event can be expensive. With roadside assistance and towing physical damage coverage, your insurance provider will:

• Cover the expenses for onsite repair work if a covered loss occurs
• Reimburse the cost of towing your damaged vehicle after an accident

Some of the best physical damage coverage policies provide an extended towing option. They’ll let you get your semi-truck towed to your garage or one that’s close to your trucking company’s main headquarters (instead of the nearest garage) at no additional charge.

Downtime Coverage

Extended truck downtime halts your business operations, resulting in daily financial losses. Downtime coverage provides compensation, typically a set amount per agreed time, until your vehicle is back on the road.

Emergency Expenses

This coverage is beneficial for over-the-road (OTR) truck drivers involved in distant accidents. It covers expenses for their safety post-incident and facilitates their safe return home, including additional lodging, food, and transportation costs.

Loan Gap Coverage

If your truck is declared a total loss because of a serious accident or theft, and you still owe money on the commercial vehicle loan, loan gap coverage steps in. This coverage fills the gap between the actual cash value of your truck at the time of the covered loss and the outstanding loan balance.

For example, if you owe $25,000 on your loan but the current actual cash value of your vehicle is $20,000, your insurer without loan gap coverage would only pay you $20,000 (minus deductible). With loan gap coverage, you’d receive the actual cash value of your truck ($20,000) plus the $5,000 loan gap amount, totaling $25,000 (minus deductible) to help settle the outstanding loan balance.

For more information on gap insurance, check out this detailed guide.

Truck Rental Costs

If a truck driver gets into an accident mid-trip, you must find a way to deliver the cargo to its final destination. Truck rental costs help you cover the costs of renting another truck to complete the trip and fulfill your obligation to a client.

Equipment Floater Insurance

Equipment floater insurance protects valuable tools or equipment not permanently attached to a truck, but necessary for specific trucking operations.

Rental Reimbursement

Rental reimbursement covers renting another truck to continue your trucking operations while your covered vehicle is under repair after a covered loss. Most insurance companies provide rental reimbursement for an agreed period – often up to 120 days after a covered loss.

What Physical Damage Won’t Cover – Exceptions and Restrictions

Physical damage insurance won’t cover the following risks:

• Damage to cargo and personal effects, including a driver’s personal items, electronic equipment, chains, binders, and non-permanently attached equipment.
• General wear and tear on various vehicle parts
• Medical expenses
• Lawsuit fees
• Damage to other vehicles

Physical damage insurance doesn’t cover non-owned trailer damages, including those used in a trailer interchange agreement.

Who Needs Trucking Physical Damage Insurance?

You will benefit from and should consider purchasing physical damage coverage if you belong to any of the following three categories:

Owner-operators: Owner-operators are responsible for insuring all commercial vehicles against physical damages, even if they operate under a motor carrier’s lease. Usually, leased owner-operators only receive primary liability insurance through their motor carrier.

For-hire motor carriers: Unless exclusively working with owner-operators, trucking companies with a fleet of commercial vehicles need physical damage coverage.

Private carriers: Individuals transporting their own cargo require physical damage insurance to protect their vehicle.

Physical Damage Coverage Deductibles

When buying physical damage truck insurance, you’ll need to choose a deductible, which is the amount you’ll pay out-of-pocket when making an insurance claim. You have different deductible options to consider based on your insurance requirements:

• Single deductible for accounts with multiple coverage options.
• Customized aggregate deductible for fleets.

Select your deductible thoughtfully as it impacts your insurance costs. Opting for a higher deductible usually reduces monthly payments, but ensure it’s an amount you can comfortably afford to pay when necessary.

Final Thoughts

While the law doesn’t mandate purchasing physical damage insurance, it’s a crucial coverage policy to ensure the smooth operation of your trucking business.

To find the best physical damage insurance provider, obtain quotes from multiple insurers and compare them. Look for specific features and terms, such as discounts and the availability of a single deductible endorsement at no extra cost.

Assess how well their terms align with your business’s current and future objectives. Check out our detailed guide on commercial truck insurance for further insights into selecting an insurance provider.

Additionally, consider our add-on coverage options for extra protection. If you ever require vehicle financing to recover from an unforeseen setback, don’t hesitate to contact Mission Financial Services. We’re always here to assist you.