Drive Other Car Endorsement: Who Needs It and What It Covers

Neighbor lending car keys to a business executive

A drive other car (DOC) endorsement extends your commercial auto policy to a named individual, usually an owner or executive, when that person drives a vehicle the business does not own, for personal use. It exists because many business owners are given a company vehicle and never buy a personal auto policy. When they borrow a friend’s car or rent one on a weekend, nothing responds unless the business policy has been broadened. This guide explains how the endorsement works, who should be scheduled on it, where it stops, and how it relates to rental reimbursement on a commercial auto policy.

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TL;DR

  • A DOC endorsement (ISO form CA 99 10) extends coverages your commercial auto policy already carries to a named individual driving a non-owned auto.
  • It is built for executives and owners who have a company-furnished vehicle and no personal auto policy of their own.
  • It excludes autos owned by the individual or a household member, and autos used while working in the auto business.
  • It is not the same as hired and non-owned coverage, which deals with business use. Rental reimbursement is a separate endorsement for replacement vehicles after a covered loss.
  • Review your schedule at every renewal, and every time someone new takes over a company vehicle.

Table of Contents

What a drive other car endorsement actually does

What is a drive other car endorsement? The DOC endorsement, ISO form CA 99 10 10 13, extends any or all of the liability, medical payments, uninsured motorists or physical damage coverages of a business auto or motor carriers policy to the individual named in the endorsement schedule. Think of it as a bridge between your business policy and the personal driving life of the people you schedule.

The key limit is built into that wording: the endorsement can only extend coverage the policy already carries. If your commercial auto policy has no physical damage coverage, a DOC endorsement cannot create it. If your liability limit is modest, the scheduled person drives a borrowed car with that same limit. For that reason, a DOC endorsement is only as strong as the policy underneath it, and the first step in using it well is to review the base policy.

The typical situation is described in the IRMI definition of the endorsement: an executive officer who does not carry personal auto insurance because the company furnishes a vehicle. Coverage comes into play when that designated individual, or the resident spouse, drives a non-owned auto for personal use.

If you want a plain-language definition of related terms such as named insured, non-owned auto and scheduled driver, our transportation insurance glossary covers them.

Who needs drive other car coverage

Who should be on the endorsement? The people the endorsement is designed for share one trait: they drive a vehicle owned or leased by the business, so they have no personal auto policy that would follow them into someone else’s car. Common examples include:

The owner of a trucking company who uses a company pickup as a daily driver. The president or general manager of a small corporation or partnership. A sales executive whose employer supplies the car. In each case the person’s personal driving, such as running errands in a friend’s vehicle or driving a relative’s car during a visit, falls outside what the business policy normally responds to.

The IndependentAgent.com guide by Ines Hoyle describes DOC coverage as filling a very specific, executive-level need, which is a useful way to think about it. It is not a coverage you add for every driver on the payroll. It is a targeted fix for key personnel who might not maintain a separate personal auto policy.

What about family? Liability coverage applies to an auto not owned, hired or borrowed by the named insured while it is used by the scheduled individual or the individual’s resident spouse. According to the Property Casualty 360 analysis, other household residents must be named in the endorsement to have liability coverage. If you have an adult child living at home who drives, that person needs to be listed or have a personal policy of their own.

There is a related situation worth knowing. The Rough Notes Company points out that a coverage concern exists when a family’s only available vehicle is supplied or owned by a business, and that attaching CA 99 10 is a simpler answer than adding every family member to the commercial policy as a named insured. For a small trucking operation where the owner’s family shares one company-owned vehicle, that is a point to raise at your next policy review.

How the coverage works in practice

How does DOC insurance respond to a claim? Say your scheduled operations manager borrows a neighbor’s car on Saturday and causes an accident. If the neighbor’s own insurance is thin or absent, the DOC endorsement can bring the business auto policy’s liability coverage to the scheduled person, subject to the policy’s limit and terms. Where physical damage coverages have been extended, they can also apply to the borrowed vehicle, again as the underlying policy provides.

Three practical points follow from this:

First, the schedule matters. Only individuals named on the endorsement are covered, so the form is only as accurate as your list. Second, the coverages that are extended are chosen by you and the insurer, which is why “any or all” appears in the form’s description. Third, the vehicle must be one that the business does not own. A company-owned vehicle must be listed on the commercial policy itself.

Our guide on adding drivers to a fleet policy walks through how schedule changes are handled, and many of the same habits apply to DOC schedules.

What a DOC endorsement excludes

Where does the coverage stop? The standard exclusions are narrow but important. The endorsement excludes autos owned by the individual or any member of the household, and it excludes autos used by the individual while working in a business of selling, servicing, repairing or parking autos. Other household residents are not covered for liability unless they are named.

That first exclusion is the one people miss. If your spouse owns a car, or you own a personal motorcycle or a second vehicle, DOC does not respond to it. Those need their own personal coverage.

What about regular use? The Property Casualty 360 piece notes that the form has no exclusion for an auto furnished or available for the individual’s regular use. Courts and insurers still care about frequency, however. In Auto Owners Ins. Co. v. Miller, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the purpose of drive other cars provisions is to cover isolated, casual use, while excluding frequent, habitual or principal use, so insurers are not exposed to added risk without an appropriate premium. That case concerned a personal policy provision, but the logic is a useful reminder: a DOC endorsement is not a substitute for insuring a vehicle you drive every day. If you routinely drive a friend’s truck, ask for it to be insured properly.

Because the details depend on the exact form edition and any state-specific changes, check your own policy language and ask your agent or insurer how your endorsement reads. Our overview of common trucking coverage exclusions is a good companion for that review.

Drive other car vs. hired and non-owned auto

How is DOC different from hired and non-owned coverage? These get confused constantly, and the confusion creates gaps. Hired and non-owned coverages address business use. DOC extends the commercial auto policy’s coverages to a named individual for personal use of a non-owned vehicle. The IndependentAgent.com article states that hired and non-owned coverage sits under one endorsement, while DOC is a separate endorsement.

A second distinction comes from IA Magazine. The commercial auto form defines a hired auto as only those autos you lease, hire, rent or borrow, meaning the named insured. A vehicle rented or borrowed by an individual listed on a DOC endorsement is not a hired auto for that reason. In practice, that means you should not assume one endorsement stands in for the other.

Here is a simple way to sort it out:

Situation Coverage that typically addresses it
An employee runs a business errand in their own car Non-owned auto liability
The business rents a vehicle for a job Hired auto coverage
A scheduled executive drives a friend’s car on a weekend Drive other car endorsement
A covered company truck is in the shop after a claim Rental reimbursement endorsement, if purchased

Our business guide to non-owned auto insurance covers the business-use side in more detail, and our article on commercial versus personal auto helps you decide which policy type fits each vehicle.

Rental reimbursement on a commercial auto policy

Where does rental reimbursement fit? People searching for drive other car coverage often also ask about rental reimbursement, and they are separate tools. DOC covers a person driving a non-owned auto. Rental reimbursement pays for a replacement vehicle while your own covered vehicle is out of service after a covered loss.

Christopher Boggs explains in MyNewMarkets that rental reimbursement is designed to reimburse the cost to rent a replacement vehicle while a covered vehicle is repaired, and that an unendorsed business auto policy does not cover loss of use after a first-party comprehensive or collision loss. For a business where a truck sitting idle means lost revenue, that gap can be costly.

The standard ISO endorsement, CA 99 23, has terms worth knowing. According to Property Casualty 360, the covered auto must be scheduled with comprehensive, collision or specified causes of loss for a specified period of at least 30 days. The minimum limit that can be purchased is $15 per day, and reimbursement is available for expenses beginning 24 hours after the loss.

There are also limits in the form itself. The ISO CA 99 23 form says rental reimbursement does not apply while spare or reserve autos are available to the insured for operations. For a private passenger auto that is totally stolen, the insurer pays only the rental expense not already provided under the Physical Damage Coverage Extension.

How much rental limit should you choose? Base it on the vehicle you would have to replace. Boggs noted in 2009 that private passenger autos might be attainable at around $30 per day, while renting a replacement dump truck or other large work vehicle could run as high as $500 or $600 per day. Those figures are dated, so treat them as an illustration of the gap between passenger and heavy vehicles, then price a current rental for your own equipment. For heavy trucks, a $15 minimum limit would not come close.

If you operate trucks, our list of trucking policy add-ons shows how rental reimbursement sits alongside other enhancements, and our guide to truck rental insurance explains the rental side.

Rental reimbursement on a commercial auto policy

Common gaps and how to close them

The IndependentAgent.com article lists the situations in which DOC can still leave an insured exposed. Each one has a practical habit that prevents it.

What if someone new takes over the company vehicle? If you hire a new executive and do not add that person by endorsement, coverage may not apply. Make it part of onboarding: when a key person is given a company vehicle, ask your agent whether they belong on the DOC schedule.

What if the business owns a vehicle that is available for personal use? If the business owns a vehicle that is available for use, or the insured uses it regularly, coverage under DOC may not apply, and any commercial vehicle must be endorsed on the policy itself. Keep your vehicle schedule current so that every company-owned unit is actually listed.

What if a scheduled person has a household vehicle of their own? That vehicle is excluded from DOC. It needs a personal auto policy, and the personal policy should be checked against the commercial one so the two do not leave a seam between them.

What if your limits are low? Because DOC borrows the commercial policy’s coverages, a low liability limit follows the scheduled person into every borrowed car. When you review limits for your trucks, think about the people on your DOC schedule too.

A short checklist-style conversation with your agent at each renewal usually settles all of this: who is scheduled, which coverages are extended, which vehicles are listed, and what the limits are. If your fleet is changing, our overview of temporary commercial auto options can also help.

Common gaps and how to close them

DOC is only one piece of the wider picture. Cargo is another: a drive other car endorsement does nothing for freight in your truck, and a practical cargo insurance guide shows how goods in transit are protected separately from vehicles and drivers.

Our perspective

We see the same pattern at renewal time. A trucking owner has a well-built policy on the trucks, a cargo line, maybe a rental reimbursement endorsement, and then realizes the owner’s own driving outside the company truck was never part of the plan. DOC is a small endorsement, but it answers a specific question that someone will eventually ask at a bad moment.

Our view is that the best time to settle it is while you are comparing quotes, not after a claim. When you can see several insurers’ options side by side, you can ask each one the same questions: Is DOC available on this policy? Which coverages does it extend? Who can be scheduled? What are the limits underneath? Seeing those answers together makes the differences clear in minutes rather than days.

We also believe the endorsement should be treated as part of a package. Review your base liability limits, your hired and non-owned coverage, your rental reimbursement and your DOC schedule together, and then revisit them whenever drivers or vehicles change. That is the proactive way to stay ahead of renewal deadlines, and it is how our platform is designed to be used.

Vladimir

Compare commercial auto options online

If your renewal is coming up, or you are not sure your executives are properly scheduled, we can help you put the options side by side. Diamondback Insurance lets you request instant, tailored quotes from multiple insurers, compare them and buy online. Start with our trucking insurance quote page to see what is available for your fleet.

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When you request a quote, tell the insurer which individuals need drive other car coverage and whether you want rental reimbursement. Availability and terms depend on the insurer and your policy, so confirm them before you bind. You can also start from our home page for the full list of coverages.

FAQ

What is a drive other car endorsement?

It is a commercial auto endorsement, ISO form CA 99 10, that extends the policy’s liability, medical payments, uninsured motorists or physical damage coverages to a named individual. It applies when that person drives a non-owned auto for personal use. It can only extend coverage the policy already includes.

Does drive other car coverage cover my family?

The scheduled individual’s resident spouse is covered when driving a non-owned auto. Other household residents must be named in the endorsement to have liability coverage. Autos owned by the individual or a household member are excluded, so family-owned cars still need their own personal policy.

Is drive other car the same as hired and non-owned auto coverage?

No. Hired and non-owned coverages address business use of rented, borrowed or employee-owned vehicles, and sit under one endorsement. DOC is a separate endorsement for a named individual’s personal use of a non-owned vehicle. Many businesses need both, depending on how their people drive.

Does DOC include rental reimbursement?

No. Rental reimbursement is its own endorsement, such as ISO CA 99 23, and it pays for a replacement vehicle while a covered auto is being repaired after a covered loss. It requires the vehicle to carry comprehensive, collision or specified causes of loss coverage.

Can I drive someone else’s car if I am not on their insurance?

It depends on the owner’s policy and your own coverage, and the answer is not the same in every state. If you drive a non-owned car often, ask the owner’s insurer or your agent how it should be insured rather than relying on occasional-use rules.

Sources

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