Three-truck S2 Transport co-owner Steve Libertore, also a trucking-focused insurance agent with the Kincaid Insurance Group, was contacted by SBA for this purpose in December after haven taken an SBA loan earlier in the year. For Libertore, it was a routine matter, really. S2 was "contacted in December for proof of coverage. I only needed to provide a certificate of insurance for my assets and the underwriter put that in the file."
Those assets? "We only have the trucks and trailers," Libertore said, "so they are covered under the physical damage policy."
Steve Libertore and Scott Sabatini's hotshot-focused S2 Transport was covered last year as part of this
As is the case for many an owner-operator business, whether a single truck or more. For Arizona-based owner-operator Lance Buttermore, though, the SBA office of disaster assistance rep that contacted him asked for something initially that he thought he didn't have -- "hazard insurance." What kind of insurance exactly? he asked. The SBA rep used the "business contents and personal property" phrase to describe the insurance.
Buttermore made note of his Gallagher policy, covering his 2015 Kenworth T680 (find a picture at the bottom of the story). The policy also "covers contents in the vehicle," he said, including "my laptop that I rarely use that is inside this vehicle. We have theft coverage, too." But the language Buttermore used for the coverage -- physical damage -- given it did not include the phrase the SBA rep used, wasn't passing muster in her view.
Buttermore did some cursory research and figured he could get so-called "business contents insurance ... for about $50 a month." Yet an out-of-the-blue contact from SBA asking him to suddenly buy something or be deemed in default on the loan made his spidey senses tingle, as it were, particularly given the well-publicized scam artists surrounding everything COVID-19-relief-related.
