Who Is Responsible for Paying in a Truck or Commercial Vehicle Accident?

Another big difference in commercial vehicle crashes is the insurance industry. Commercial insurance is a totally different type and amount of insurance than say the one you'd be used to in dealing with a residential auto crash. Federal requirements today maintain a minimum limit of $750,000 in liability coverage for a commercial truck. In North Carolina, by contrast, the minimum limit is $30,000 for residential automobile.

So right away, the commercial trucking industry has to maintain much higher limits of insurance than you or I do when we drive our cars on the road. And this, again, is because of the extraordinary harm that these vehicles are capable of when they're going out unsafe on the roads. And because of that, the insurance company is very different than the insurance company you may be dealing with in a residential case.

The insurance company in a commercial motor vehicle case is much more sophisticated. They have attorneys that are often on the scene within 24 hours of the crash. They have engineers and internal investigators that conduct reviews, and they have safety boards that go through an entire analysis of the crash. And often this occurs before the victim even consults with their own lawyer. And again, this puts the victim at a significant disadvantage and is why you need to find somebody competent and early on to investigate what happened.