When Someone Else’s Accident Becomes Your Problem
By Mary Shoemaker, Commercial Lines Manager
Not long ago, outsourcing shipping and delivery felt like a clean transfer of responsibility. You hire a third party to deliver your goods or products. Their trucks, their drivers, their insurance. From a risk standpoint, it seemed like a sensible division of labor.
But that assumption is starting to break down.
More and more, we’re seeing situations where a business hires a transportation company to move its goods and ends up being pulled into a claim when something goes wrong on the road. Not because they were directly involved in the accident, but because they were connected to the decision of who was hired to do the job in the first place.
That shift is subtle, but it matters.
When “Their Problem” Becomes Yours
In the past, if a carrier was involved in a serious accident, the expectation was that their insurance would respond. Today, when those limits fall short—especially in cases involving significant bodily injury—attorneys are increasingly looking beyond the carrier to the company that hired them.
The reasoning is straightforward: if your business selected the transportation provider, did you take reasonable steps to ensure they were qualified to do the work safely?
That’s where the concept of negligent hiring comes into play. And it’s what’s driving a growing number of claims against businesses that don’t consider themselves to be “in transportation” at all…they simply needed to get their product from point A to point B.
It doesn’t take much to see how this unfolds.
A company hires a third-party carrier to deliver a shipment. The driver is involved in an accident that results in serious injuries. The carrier’s insurance policy isn’t large enough to cover the full extent of the damages. At that point, the focus expands. The hiring company becomes part of the conversation, and potentially, part of the financial responsibility.
From the outside, it can feel like an unexpected place to be. But from a legal standpoint, it’s increasingly becoming the norm.
Why This Is Getting More Attention Now
As this shift has taken hold, insurance carriers have started paying closer attention as well. Underwriting has tightened. Questions about how companies select and manage third-party carriers have become more detailed. There’s a growing recognition that this exposure isn’t theoretical—it’s already showing up in real claims.
Which raises an important question for business owners: If you rely on outside carriers—even occasionally—how much do you really know about them?
For many companies, the honest answer is “not much.” A vendor is recommended. A rate is quoted. A timeline is promised. And the decision gets made quickly, because operationally, it has to. What’s often missing is a closer look at the factors that now matter most.
What Smarter Vetting Looks Like
There are things business owners can and should know when it comes to contracting with transportation services. Things like a carrier’s safety rating. Their track record. Whether their insurance coverage is not just in place, but sufficient. Whether there are any red flags in their history that might suggest elevated risk.
These aren’t steps that most businesses were trained to take; but they’re becoming more important as the legal landscape evolves.
Even something as simple as requesting and reviewing a certificate of insurance can surface important details. In larger, national carriers, those protections are often built into the scale of their operations. But with smaller or local providers, there can be much more variability, and that’s where the exposure tends to grow.
Looking at Your Own Coverage Differently
At the same time, it’s worth taking a step back and looking inward. Most businesses already carry some level of hired and non-owned auto liability coverage as part of their insurance program.
What’s less clear, in many cases, is whether the limits and structure of that coverage truly reflect how the business operates today:
how often shipments go out
how far they travel
what’s at stake if something goes wrong
These are not questions with one universal answer. It’s different for a manufacturer shipping nationally than it is for a local distributor making regional deliveries. But the common thread is this: the exposure exists whether you’ve accounted for it or not.
The best course of action is to have an insurance expert conduct a thorough review of your current coverages, liabilities, and limits—specifically within the context of this emerging trend—just to make sure you’re not underinsured and overexposed.
A Different Way to Think About “Outsourcing”
For many business owners, this is one of those areas where awareness alone can make a meaningful difference. Because once you recognize that outsourcing transportation doesn’t fully outsource the risk, the conversation changes. Carrier selection becomes less about convenience and more about due diligence. Insurance becomes less about checking a box and more about aligning coverage with real-world scenarios.
If this is the first time you’re thinking about third-party transportation liability, that’s not unusual. But it is something worth getting in front of. A quick review of how your business selects carriers, what protections they carry, and how your own policy would respond in a worst-case scenario can go a long way toward avoiding surprises later.
And if you’re not sure where to start, that’s exactly the kind of conversation we have every day. If you’d like a second set of eyes and ears to help you achieve the peace of mind that comes with knowing you're adequately covered in such a situation, simply reach out to me directly. I’m more than happy to help!
✉️ " MShoemaker [at] gcbinsurance [dot] com" (mshoemaker [at] gcbinsurance [dot] com)
☎️ 586-949-2300