Commercial auto insurance provides the foundational liability and property coverage for a car rental business. But commercial auto insurance was generally designed for company employees driving company vehicles. Most standard policies don’t cover cars driven routinely by other people.
Each of your renters presents a liability risk. For that reason, car rental businesses also need:
- General liability insurance, which covers other types of legal claims filed by your customers or passersby.
- An umbrella or excess liability policy to protect you in case of a large lawsuit.
- Workers’ comp to comply with legal requirements.
This coverage can be complex, so we recommend working with an agent who specializes in fleets. Here’s where to start.
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Best insurance companies for car rental businesses
NerdWallet’s editorial team chooses the best business insurance companies based on several factors. For car rental businesses, we focused on companies with a demonstrated appetite for the industry. That might mean advertising auto rental insurance directly or promoting the types of services fleet owners need, like vehicle monitoring.
Car rental business owners should work with insurance agents to get coverage. Your needs are specialized enough that we don’t recommend doing it yourself. But if your agent surfaces one of these companies, they’re good options.
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Philadelphia Insurance
Best overall for car rental businesses
Philadelphia is one of our top-rated insurance companies. It got far fewer complaints about commercial auto insurance than we’d expect given its market share, according to a NerdWallet analysis of National Association of Insurance Commissioners data from 2023-2025.
Its package for auto rental businesses includes excess liability insurance and can include loss of use coverage, which can make up for your losses while a vehicle is out of commission. The company only underwrites policies for fleets with 10 or more autos, though.
Zurich Insurance
Best for offering supplemental insurance to your renters
Zurich Insurance underwrites auto coverage for fleets of cars, trucks and RVs. It also has a few different supplemental insurance policies that you can offer your renters when they’re checking out, like policies that protect their personal property from theft or provide extra liability protection. Zurich got slightly more complaints than we’d expect about commercial auto insurance between 2023 and 2025, but did improve year over year.
Lancer Insurance
Best for a company focused on rental fleets
NerdWallet has not given a star rating to Lancer Insurance.
New York-based Lancer Insurance specializes in fleets and even has a dedicated claims phone number for auto rental businesses. The company has an “excellent” financial strength rating from AM Best and got far fewer complaints about its commercial auto insurance than we’d expect. The company sells commercial auto and general liability insurance.
What is car rental business insurance?
Car rental businesses need to stack several types of business insurance to protect their company finances, their vehicles and their employees.
Car rental business insurance can cover you in cases like:
- One of your renters rear-ends another vehicle at an intersection.
- Someone steals one of your vehicles from an unsecured lot.
- A customer gets distracted connecting his phone to Bluetooth while driving off your lot and strikes a customer walking in.
- You wait to replace a car’s brake pads. The brakes fail and a renter sues your business for negligence.
- A renter returns a car with hail damage.
Some of those issues might sound like things covered by a standard auto insurance policy. And many of them are. But the larger your fleet and the more people you rent to, the more liability protection you need.
A broker can help you find auto insurance policies that provide the right coverage.
What insurance policies do car rental businesses need?
Car rental businesses should start by getting commercial auto insurance. These policies include two components: liability and physical damage coverage. Your business has special considerations for both.
Commercial auto liability insurance
This pays out to cover your legal costs and medical payments if someone driving one of your cars hits someone else or gets injured themselves.
Your agent should make sure your policy explicitly covers the drivers renting your cars. You may also need higher limits than a typical commercial fleet, since every new driver introduces additional risk.
🤓Nerdy Tip
You have a few ways to increase your coverage. The most straightforward is to simply boost the limit on your commercial auto policy. But you may be able to get similar protection at a cheaper price. To do that, get quotes for an umbrella or excess liability policy and compare the costs. Collision and comprehensive coverage
The physical damage component of a commercial auto policy pays to repair or replace your vehicles if they get damaged. Collision coverage pays out for repairs after a crash. Comprehensive coverage kicks in if a car is stolen or damaged by a covered loss, like hail or a falling tree.
You may be able to modify your coverage so you have an aggregate deductible rather than a per-vehicle deductible. That can help you save money on repairs if a single event, like a hailstorm, damages a dozen cars at the same time.
General liability insurance or a business owner’s policy
Every business needs general liability insurance. This covers lawsuits from third parties if your business injures them, damages their property or gets accused of copyright infringement, libel or slander.
If you have a lot or an office, get a business owner’s policy instead. A BOP includes general liability insurance along with commercial property insurance. You’ll need that if a natural disaster damages your building or someone steals something, like a computer, out of your office. (A BOP won’t cover vehicles, though.)
Garage liability insurance
General liability insurance generally excludes injuries or property damage if a vehicle was involved. That could include injuries that happen on your lot.
To make up for that gap, you need a garage liability insurance policy. Like general liability insurance, this covers claims of customer injuries and property damage — but specifically those involving a car or truck.
Workers’ comp
If you have employees, you almost certainly need workers’ comp. This covers medical expenses and a portion of lost wages for workers who get injured on the job. For instance, if a renter clips one of your employees while driving off the lot, workers’ comp would cover things like their medical bills, rehab costs and even a portion of their salary.
Umbrella insurance
A commercial umbrella policy sits on top of your commercial auto and general liability insurance. If a renter causes a serious crash and the other party files a big legal claim, it could exceed your commercial auto liability limits. That’s when an umbrella kicks in.
The bigger your fleet, the more important it is to have an umbrella policy. Umbrella limits usually start at $1 million and go up from there.
Cyber liability insurance
Rental car companies manage quite a bit of information — drivers’ licenses, credit card numbers, vehicle travel data and more. That makes them a target for cyberattacks. A cyber liability policy pays out to cover claims related to such attacks, including the cost of notifying customers and paying a ransom if you have to.
Insurance for car-sharing operators
If you list your car on a platform like Turo, you sit in a gray area. You probably have an auto insurance policy on your car. But most personal auto insurance policies don’t cover cars while someone else is renting them.
Instead, your platform might have an insurance policy built into its fee structure. Read the fine print. Turo, for instance, provides varying levels of liability insurance through Travelers.
But that policy doesn’t include collision and comprehensive coverage. Instead, Turo offers “physical damage reimbursement.” Turo says this is a contractually binding agreement. But the amount you’re responsible for can range from $250 to $2,750 per incident. And it may take up to three days for the company to respond to a damage report.
If you rent several vehicles, those per-incident costs could add up fast. Consider talking to an insurance agent about your commercial auto insurance options.
What rental businesses should ask their agent
Commercial auto policies can get complicated fast. Make sure you talk to your agent about the following:
- Is my coverage primary or contingent? This determines whether a renter’s insurance will help cover their accident. If your coverage is primary, it pays out first. If it’s contingent, the renter’s policy will pay out first. Contingent coverage is probably cheaper. But you’ll need to make sure your rental agreement is completely clear about the renter’s responsibility.
- Is theft by renters covered? Comprehensive auto insurance covers cars stolen by third parties. But theft by a renter is called “conversion.” You might need a specific endorsement for this.
- What checks do I have to do on renters? Your policy probably expects you to screen potential renters. Make sure you understand any guidelines the insurer provides. Your claim could be denied if you don’t.
- Is loss of use covered? When a car is in the shop for repairs, you can’t rent it out. That could mean days to weeks of lost revenue. Some insurance policies will help make up for that lost revenue. This is a form of business income insurance. If yours doesn’t, you may be able to pass that cost onto the renter.
- What happens if I add or remove vehicles from the fleet? You may have to share the VIN of a new vehicle with your insurer before it’s covered. In other cases, it might be covered as long as you notify the insurance company within a certain period of time.
- Can you review my rental contract? Your renters need to know what they’re committing themselves (and maybe their own insurance company) to. If they don’t and something goes wrong on the road, one of your insurers could use that as a reason to deny the claim. Your agent can read over your agreement and make sure it contains the language you need.
How much does car rental business insurance cost?
Car rental business insurance costs will vary widely. These factors affect your premium:
- The size of your fleet. Larger fleets will cost more to insure overall — but you may actually pay less on a per-unit basis since you’re essentially buying in bulk. Growing your fleet from three cars to five will probably cause your premiums to go up. Growing from 50 to 52 might not.
- The value of your vehicles. Specialized autos, like RVs or luxury cars, cost more to repair and replace than run-of-the-mill sedans and crossovers.
- What customers you serve. Rental car businesses near airports are probably leasing to out-of-town travelers, who may be more likely to crash on roads they don’t know. Local rental facilities that serve in-town customers may be less risky. If you want to serve a high-risk market, like renters under age 25, your premiums will likely be higher.
- How you screen renters. License verification, fraud detection and mandatory renter deposits can all help show your insurer that you’re careful about who you rent to.
- Your security. Parking cars in a garage instead of a lot can decrease the risk of hail or wind damage. Adding security cameras may help protect against theft. Both of these can decrease your premiums.
- Your previous claims history. Across the insurance business, previous claims generally increase your future premiums.
How to get insurance for your car rental business
Car rental businesses are complicated enough that we recommend working with an insurance agent or broker to get coverage.
Follow these steps to get coverage:
- Find an agent or broker. Look for an independent agent who specializes in commercial auto insurance. They can use their expertise to understand which protections you need, like garage liability insurance.
- Inventory your fleet. You’ll need to list every vehicle on your policy. That includes its make, model, year and VIN.
- Document your operational controls. You may be able to reduce your premiums if you can prove that your lot has security cameras, that you verify each renter’s driver's license or that your cars are covered when not in use.
- Have your agent review your rental agreement. Every renter should sign an agreement before they rent a car. You can spell out your requirements for renters there. If a renter gets into a crash and you find out they misrepresented themselves in the rental agreement, the fault might lie with them rather than you. Your agent can look at your rental agreement from the perspective of what will protect you most in case of an insurance claim.
- Compare quotes and buy a policy. Hopefully, your agent can get several quotes from different companies. Work with them to understand any differences in the coverage, then choose the policy that provides the best coverage at the best price.
- Review and update your coverage annually. If you add or remove vehicles from your fleet, your insurance should reflect that. Meet with your broker to see if your coverage is still sufficient or if you need to make changes. Get new quotes every few years to make sure you’re still getting the best price, too.
Save up to 30% on business insurance
NerdWallet Small Business helps you get real-time quotes from 30+ insurers, and instant access to your Certificate of Insurance (COI) through our partner, Coverdash.
on Coverdash's website
Methodology
Business insurance ratings methodology
NerdWallet rewards business insurance companies for reliability and good service. We calculate star ratings based on scores in about a dozen categories. These include:
- Each company's financial strength.
- How many complaints customers made relative to its market share.
- How easy it is to get coverage.
- How accessible customer service is.
Learn more about how we rate small-business insurance companies.
Our editorial team routinely fact-checks and updates these data points. We also adjust our scoring on an ongoing basis. This helps our star ratings reflect changing industry norms. For instance, in 2026, we began evaluating how easy insurers make it to add an additional insured.
Our ratings are a guide. But insurance policy details and prices can vary widely. We encourage you to shop around and compare several insurance quotes. NerdWallet does not receive compensation for any reviews. Read our editorial guidelines.
Insurer complaints methodology
One key factor in our star ratings is how many complaints insurance companies get. Here's how we arrive at that score.
Disappointed customers can file a complaint with their state's insurance department. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) collects, analyzes and groups complaints by business line and insurance company every year. A business line is a specific type of coverage, like workers’ comp.
Then, the NAIC calculates a complaint ratio for each company. It divides the company's share of complaints by its share of total premiums for each line of business. It then adds these ratio values to their official complaint index.
- A complaint ratio of 1 means a company received about the expected number of complaints relative to its size.
- A ratio of 2 means it received twice as many complaints as expected.
- A ratio of 0 means it received half as many complaints as expected.
NerdWallet obtains the raw NAIC data every year. We aggregate results at the company level and fact-check these results. Then we calculate a three-year average of each insurer's complaint ratio and convert it to a score for our star ratings.
Business insurance star ratings consider complaints about two lines of business: commercial liability and commercial property. We analyze complaint data on commercial auto and workers' comp policies too. But we don't currently incorporate these into our ratings since they're less universal.
