Your food truck is your pride and joy and just happens to be your restaurant on wheels, so it needs special insurance to keep your business moving. Since this means combining a business owner’s policy (BOP) with a commercial auto policy, finding quality food truck insurance can be challenging.
We’ve researched over 20 insurers and selected the six best food truck insurance companies.
- FLIP: Best food truck insurance company
- Simply Business: Best for comparing quotes
- ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE: Best for insurance for food trucks working festivals
- Thimble: Best for business owner’s policy
- Hiscox: Best for food trucks taking online orders
- Progressive: Best for commercial auto insurance
- Best Food Truck Insurance Companies Compared
- FLIP: Best Food Truck Insurance Company
- Simply Business: Best for Comparing Quotes for Food Truck Insurance
- ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE: Best Insurance for Food Trucks Working Festivals
- Thimble: Best for Business Owner’s Policy
- Hiscox: Best for Food Trucks Taking Online Orders
- Progressive: Best for Commercial Auto Insurance
- How We Evaluated the Best Insurance for Food Trucks
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Bottom Line
Best Food Truck Insurance Companies Compared
| Quote Process | Online Policy Purchase | Accessibility | Instant COICertificate of insurance | Financial Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Online | ✓ | Monday-Friday,8 a.m.-8 p.m. ET | ✓ | A- (Excellent) |
| Get a Quote From FLIP | |||||
 | Online or over the phone | ✓ | Monday-Friday,8 a.m.-8 p.m. ET | ✓ | A- (Excellent) to A++ (Superior) |
| Get a Quote From Simply Business | |||||
 | Online or over the phone | ✓ | Monday-Friday,6 a.m.-5 p.m. PT | ✓ | A- (Excellent) |
| Get a Quote From ERGO - NEXT INSURANCE | |||||
 | Online or via the app | ✓ | Monday-Friday,9 a.m.-6 p.m. ET | ✓ | A- to A (Excellent) |
| Get a Quote From Thimble | |||||
 | Online or over the phone | ✓ | Monday-Friday,8 a.m.-8 p.m. ET | ✓ | A (Excellent) |
| Get a Quote From Hiscox | |||||
 | Online or over the phone | ✕ | 24/7 call center | ✕ | A+ (Superior) |
| Get a Quote From Progressive | |||||
FLIP: Best Food Truck Insurance Company
Food Liability Insurance Program (FLIP) is our overall best insurance company for food trucks. As the name implies, its target audience is any small business in the food space, but one of its key industries is food trucks. It has created a straightforward, easy, and affordable way to purchase insurance for a food truck.
It offers the key policies a food truck needs, like product liability, and you can add or expand coverage simply by clicking. After just a few minutes, a policy is ready to be bought. After purchasing, your policy documents, including a certificate of liability insurance, are available. If you need quality coverage quickly, FLIP is your best provider.
As its name suggests, FLIP’s primary offering is liability insurance. While it has some equipment coverage and a food trailer, you will need to look elsewhere if you want to insure the actual truck. Progressive is an excellent option for that.
After answering only five questions, we received a quote for $888 annually. The quote included a general liability policy with limits of $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate, equipment coverage of $10,000, and a deductible of $250. Finally, we selected a liability endorsement for our trailer for a flat fee of $150.
FLIP’s liability policy is designed to offer broad coverage for food trucks. It includes personal and advertising injury, $300,000 for damage to rented premises, and $5,000 for medical expenses.
FLIP recently expanded its insurance offerings to include workers’ compensation. So, if your food truck business has any employees, you can get workers’ comp through FLIP, too—and the process is just as simple and quick.
FLIP does not have a 24/7 dedicated call center. However, you do have 24/7 online access to your policy documents, including filing a claim, through the account dashboard. The online dashboard allows you to add additional insureds at no extra cost, and you can get an instant COI if a specific venue needs it for your truck.
Coverage is available in all 50 states. You can get a quote and purchase a policy online in minutes. Licensed, no-commission agents are also available if you have questions or prefer to speak with someone.
If you experience a loss, you can file the claim through your account dashboard. An insurance adjuster will contact you within three days.
Simply Business: Best for Comparing Quotes for Food Truck Insurance
The digital online broker Simply Business is an excellent option for food truck owners who want to compare quotes before purchasing insurance. You can get a quote for food truck insurance online in just minutes by adjusting the coverages to fit your needs, after which you can buy the policy. Or, if you have any questions, you can call and speak with an agent.
Because it is a broker, Simply Business doesn’t handle any of its claims. It also doesn’t have any option actually to insure the truck itself. If these factors are important, check out Progressive, where you can do both.
Typically, Simply Business will provide multiple quotes for coverage. For this article, we only received one quote from Accredited America for general liability insurance with a standard limit of $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate. If you selected the monthly option, $209 was due the day of the purchase, followed by ten monthly payments of $62.70.
You could change the limits, and thus the price, to fit your business needs. The limits could be dropped to as low as $100,000 per occurrence or $2 million per occurrence.
Simply Business can also quote cyber liability and workers’ compensation insurance for food trucks.
Beyond the quoting and purchasing option, Simply Business offers some other convenient tools. You can manage your account online and create a COI, although in some cases, if the COI requires a coverage change, its issuance may be delayed.
To file a claim, you’ll have to reach out directly to the carrier handling your policy. However, Simply Business states that if you cannot find them or are having trouble reaching a carrier, you can contact the broker to assist you.
Overall, Simply Business continues to be an option for small business insurance that provides a pleasing experience for its customers. For example, on the review site Trustpilot,[1] there are over 1,200 reviews with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars.
ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE: Best Insurance for Food Trucks Working Festivals
Suppose you’ve ever worked a food truck festival, music festival, or special event. In that case, event organizers probably asked you to provide proof of insurance or add them to your policy as an additional insured. ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE makes adding additional insureds and sharing evidence of insurance easy.
Through its app, available on iOS and Android devices, you can create, modify, and share a COI in 60 seconds or less. This convenient option makes ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE the best for food trucks that regularly work events and festivals.
It offers nearly every type of key policy a food truck needs. Previously, it discontinued commercial auto insurance; however, a new partnership between Allstate, Allianz, and ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE was recently announced, with commercial auto insurance being one of the forthcoming products. In the meantime, if you are looking for auto insurance for your food truck, then check out Progressive.
Regarding cost, the average general liability premium is affordable and in line with what FLIP offers. According to its data, 72% of Next Insurance customers pay between $23 and $28 a month for general liability for a food truck, and 41% spend an average of less than $30 monthly for workers’ compensation.
There are ways to save when you bundle policies with Next Insurance, although the amount saved isn’t clear. Confusingly, however, one of its pages’ sections states that you can save 25% when you bundle, but a different section indicates savings of 10%. Either way, savings are possible, so it is worth checking out.
Next Insurance offers a bundle of general liability and workers’ compensation for food trucks. For food businesses, its general liability includes liquor liability if your truck serves alcohol.
Next Insurance is available nationwide, and while it isn’t open 24/7, its app functions like a call center. Through the app, you can make changes to your policy, file a claim, track the claim, and even upload any necessary documents for the claim. As previously discussed, you can create and share a COI as often as you need at no extra cost.
According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), complaints filed against Next Insurance are lower than the national average year over year, so its customers appear to be happy with their experience.
Thimble: Best for Business Owner’s Policy
Thimble is a small business insurance provider specializing in micro and brand-new businesses. For food trucks, it has created a specialized BOP that provides coverage for mobile equipment with a limit of up to $10,000.
Thimble’s BOP includes lost business income coverage, so if your business cannot operate because of a loss, you can file a claim for the lost income. Equipment breakdown coverage is available as an add-on. This unique approach to a BOP for a food truck stood out in my research. It provided an excellent alternative for food truck businesses needing to insure their equipment while also having their operation’s liability covered.
Thimble is a managing general agent (MGA) that operates similarly to a broker. MGA policies are underwritten by other companies, and claims are handled directly by those companies. So, if you prefer to have one point of contact throughout the process, then consider ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE, which has many of the same benefits as Thimble, plus an in-house claims team.
We received a quote for a BOP that costs $515 a month. The majority of that cost was for general liability, at $340.17. The policy also covered business equipment and business personal property (BPP). The insurance was available for same-day coverage.
Thimble’s BOP isn’t the only option for food truck businesses. The provider also has workers’ compensation insurance.
During the quote process, Thimble offers flexibility in determining coverage limits. It also offers several endorsements, making its offerings more customizable and specific to your business needs.
While Thimble states its business hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET, I’ve never been able to reach anyone when calling its customer service number. However, through its app, you can manage your policy, including adding and removing coverage. You can get a quote and purchase insurance through the app without speaking with anyone.
Like Next Insurance, Thimble offers a COI tool that lets you instantly create and share a COI. So, this is another good option for food trucks looking to work special events. Its short-term liability coverage is a convenient option for someone with a full-time job and who occasionally works fairs or festivals with a food truck.
Hiscox: Best for Food Trucks Taking Online Orders
Dedicated small business insurer Hiscox has established itself as a cybersecurity and cyber liability insurance authority. It has published in-depth reports on the risk of cyberattacks. With all the accumulated data, it offers support services to its customers to complement the policies it has developed for cyber liability insurance.
That’s why it is the best provider for a food truck taking online orders. Hiscox recommends cybersecurity coverage as an add-on to its food truck policy.
However, the provider does not have a 24/7 call center or sell commercial auto insurance. If you are interested in an always-available insurer that can cover your truck and your business, consider Progressive.
A general liability policy with a $2 million aggregate limit costs $77.10 monthly after a down payment of $257. For an additional $250, you can add cybersecurity to this policy.
Hiscox sells general liability, commercial property, inland marine, and cybersecurity insurance for food trucks. These options can be quoted and purchased online, often for same-day coverage.
Recently, Hiscox rolled out workers’ compensation insurance.
As one of the leading small business insurers, Hiscox has many convenient options to manage your policy: call, go online, or contact your agent. Online, you can file a claim and request a COI.
Complaint trends clearly show that Hiscox has significantly improved its customer service over the past few years. However, the recently published 2023 data shows some backward movement, with an increase in complaints.
On its website,[2] there are over 1,200 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5.
Progressive: Best for Commercial Auto Insurance
Progressive Commercial is one of the US’s largest insurers for commercial auto. When it comes to finding a company that has an appetite for insuring nearly any type of commercial vehicle, including a food truck, Progressive is the best carrier. It can be challenging to find a provider that offers commercial auto, let alone one with the appetite to insure a food truck, but food trucks fall within Progressive’s appetite.
While it offers many of the coverages you need for your business, it functions as a broker with workers’ comp, finding a partner company for your business needs. If you have a food truck with enough employees to need workers’ comp, you should consider a provider that offers it directly, like ERGO – NEXT INSURANCE.
We received a commercial auto policy for a food truck with $25,000 extra coverage for permanently installed equipment. It costs $270.66 monthly or $2,902 if you pay in full. While this quote did not include a general liability policy (CGL) for the business, Progressive does sell CGL.
It is the only carrier reviewed that asked about permanently installed kitchen equipment in the food truck when determining the cost.
Whether you need to file a claim or manage your policy, Progressive is available 24/7.
Progressive Business Advantage® is a great way to bundle auto coverage with a general liability policy. This is the platform where Progressive functions like a broker, helping you find coverage with other carriers. A nice bonus of this program is that it offers discounts, even if you don’t have all of the policies through Progressive.
Unfortunately, over the last couple of years, there has been a rise in complaints filed with state-level Departments of Insurance against Progressive, specifically regarding its commercial auto insurance. The NAIC tracks these complaints, and currently, Progressive’s complaints are much higher than the national average.
Of course, Progressive is also the largest insurer for commercial auto, so it has a more extensive customer base than other companies on this list. However, it is still troubling to see complaints continue to rise. We also found minimal information on the online account management features available once you have a policy.
How We Evaluated the Best Insurance for Food Trucks
We determined which insurance companies would be best for your food truck using our proprietary evaluation system, which we developed in-house. We reviewed over 20 insurers and presented the six with the highest scores.
In evaluating insurance companies, we focused on the customer’s needs. We paid particular interest to convenience, financial ratings (AM Best), customer service, types of policies offered, and the overall experience as a policyholder for a specific provider.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Food truck insurance is a combination of policies that protect your business and its equipment and help any customers your operations may negatively impact. The core policies for a food truck are general liability, commercial property, and commercial auto insurance.
General liability for a food truck can range from as little as $380 to nearly $2,000 annually. Commercial auto costs more and usually start at around $2,500 annually.
If you’re considering starting a food truck business, the first step is to research local laws to determine what is and is not permissible and what licenses you may need to apply for. Next, you’ll want to start thinking about your company name, logo, and menu—and there’s plenty more to do from there.
Bottom Line
Food trucks require a unique combination of liability, property, and auto insurance. We did the work and reviewed over 20 different insurers to find the best food truck insurance companies. FLIP offers the most straightforward way to purchase insurance for your food truck business. In just minutes, you can create the policy package that fits your business and buy insurance.
User review references:
[1]Trustpilot | Simply Business
[2]Hiscox Business Insurance Reviews
