Once more, they did NOT cancel some guy's personal auto insurance policy. They cancelled a COMMERCIAL insurance policy, because the COMMERCIAL entity was in an industry that GEICO does not insure. It's really not that hard to do a little research and avoid knee-jerk reactions....
why make the distinction, is my point
the whole pot heats up...not just the water around the frog. it just heats up slowly
even if they only focused on businesses, are they going to pull corporate policies for other corporations? there are many businesses that support DoD directly (SAIC, Northrup, CSC, etc)
I did some freelance MS Access database programming for an insurance broker who exclusively sold liability insurance policies (not basic property insurance mind you, but business liability insurance) to gas stations and professional liability insurance policies to architects and engineers. That’s all they sold and had quite a large number of clients. While working on this project I learned that not all commercial insurance companies, in fact a very few select companies even write policies for these groups, especially the gas stations as they carry their own sets of unique risks and liabilities and this broker found the ones who did. This broker and the insurance company policies they sold didn’t insure convenience stores unless the convenience store was secondary to the business primarily being a gas station but if the convenience store sold prepared food, then that part of the business had to be covered by another policy, often written by another insurer specializing in food service and “grocery store” policies. If I opened a convenience store and got liability insurance for that line of business and later put in gas pumps, unless my insurer was notified of that and was willing to write a rider for that, that line of business wouldn’t be covered and if gas stations were not part of their “risk pool” or “area of offered coverage” for lack of a better word, they’d probably cancel me.
As far as the auto policy, as you said, it was a commercial auto policy, not a personal auto policy and there is a very big difference between the two. Under my personal auto policy, I’m covered for my commute back and forth to work no matter what my line of work is or who my employer is or what line of business my company is in – all they are insuring is typical commuting and non-business personal travel. But if I drive my car on company business for anything other than very occasional and incidental company business, i.e. driving to a seminar, back and forth between offices on occasion; if I, for instance drive other employees back and forth between work sites, shuttle company clients around, make regular sales calls or carry or make deliveries in my or a company owned vehicle on a regular basis, I’m not covered under my personal auto policy during those trips and had better be covered under my company’s policy but then a whole other set of rules apply. And don’t even get me started on DOT rules and requirements that apply to people who drive trucks over a certain size.
If, for either my employer or as part of my own business, I transport in my regular day to day vehicle that I use to travel from home to work and back, large sums of cash or hazardous materials or items that make me at risk for being robbed, as in guns and ammo for instance, I had better have a rider on that commercial auto policy to cover me. And if the insurance company declines to cover certain risks, it is what it is. I’m sure there are insurers who do, but I understand why some don’t. It’s not that they are “anti” this or “anti” or “pro” that, it could just be because they don’t see a large enough pool of clients in that particular line of business, don’t have the “expertise” to assess the risks in that line of business to make it worth their while to insure them. Commercial liability insurance, including commercial auto insurance can get very complicated and there are highly specialized niches that not all commercial insurers choose to cover and others who specialize in the high risk niches.
The company I currently work for has UK ownership but my division is based in the US, but we have sales people on my US payroll based all around the country, a few who are US based but cover territories in Mexico or Canada and drive either a company leased car or their own vehicle on their sales calls, and they are covered under special commercial auto policy that covers that type of cross boarder international travel by car. But anyone and everyone who travels in a a personal or company vehicle as a regular part of their job, i.e. sales people and executives who regularly travel to various locations, are covered by a umbrella commercial auto policy and that policy requires that we as a company have and enforce company policies regarding use of “electronic communication devices”, i.e. cell phones and texting while driving bans and that we pull DMV records on an annual basis and conduct random drug and alcohol screenings among other provisions, something that I’m not required to do for my travel in my personal vehicle from home to office and back or for occasional and incidental business related trips during normal business hours.
And for the people who travel internationally on a regular basis on company business by air – we have one “travel” insurance policy for employee’s who exclusively travel domestically but a completely different policy written by a different insurer for those who travel internationally. The international travel policy covers medical emergencies, including among other things, airlifting back to the US for medical treatment, something that our regular health insurance policy doesn’t cover and even covers those ee’s who have opted out of our health insurance plan.
Commercial insurance can be very complicated depending on the complexity of the business and their perceived business risks and not one insurance company alone will often cover all the risks in any one line of business, especially if there are high risks in that line of business as defined by commercial underwriters.