Virtual office for insurance purposes?

The only problem with virtual offices are they are very well known. There’s only a handful of companies that run virtual offices, Opus, Alliance, Regis, to name a few and half of those are UPS store fronts. My point is they are easily flagged, so if your policy has a residency requirement or business address clause that prohibits virtual offices, that might be a problem for you.

 

No, no, no, and no again. You cannot use your friend's address your cousin's address your family's address your girlfriend's address...

You will fill out an application for your insurance and all of your information must be 1000% truthful and accurate. If you are planning on hauling a different kind of freight, if you buy a different kind of a trailer, if anything in your life changes you contact the insurance company and you explicitly explain to them everything in minute detail and make sure you are all exactly on the same page.

If you have an accident and you get sued, the insurance company is going to investigate you. If they find out the information that you gave them is not 1000% factual and true, they simply do not have to pay any claim whatsoever. So God forbid if someone got killed and they're suing you for $1,000,000 you're on your own buddy.

And by the way even just getting a policy they may still investigate you and if they find out you are not truthful they will make you repay them everything you owe them or they will just flat-out cancel you and come after you for what you owe them.

Insurance is no joke you do not want to play games with your insurance. There probably are legal ramifications also for insurance fraud beyond not just paying claims. Yes, if you lie to them about your address you are committing insurance fraud.

Your insurance will be based on your address that is on your actual driver's license which better be the address that you live at, and the address where the truck is housed. No, you cannot rent a yard and an office three or four hours away to get a lower rate and expect the insurance company to go along with that. It does not work that way.

Either literally move or pay the rate because you're gambling with something that can cost you exponentially more than the pennies you're trying to save in comparison.

That's the way it works.

 

Well the big companies self insure. That is a completely different thing. At that point they can register their trucks any way that they want. And when you're talking about a real Fleet they're going to have 75 trucks in Maryland and 150 trucks in New York and another 125 trucks in Ohio and you see where this is going.

Now there will be someone that will come on here and tell you that you can do what you're asking about. Here's the answer to that.

Call the insurance company and tell them exactly what you want to do. Tell them you live in Florida but you want to run your business out of Colorado and register your truck there and pay insurance there. Tell them you want to start an LLC in another state and that's where your headquarters will be not where you live, which by the way if you do that you will end up paying taxes twice plus have other expenses. Tell them you will rent a place in another state and you'll have a lease and you will have an office etc etc. If you can do it as other people will tell you that you can, then asking the insurance company should be no problem.

They will tell you positively no you cannot do that.

 

Its more about IFTA reports. IFTA shows where and how often you run there.

Good post by Dino. 100% correct. And besides, you don’t want to start a company and one of the first things you do is not on the up and up. Think long term success.

 

Do you have staff on your payroll 5 days a week at that location in that state? That's what they do. If you have 250 trucks and have a maintenance shop in the best state with 2 mechanics and 5 office staff doing compliance, billing ect, it's legit. I was leased on to a company like that. Building was 90 miles south of Chicago, another 70 miles south Dallas, another in the south Carolina, jersey, Georgia. South of Dallas had the most amount of people, but they can plate in any of those states. Illinois plates idk if they are cheaper by 150 a year or what. You just need a building and an employee in that state.

 

You can start a corporation and base it anywhere you want BUT you'll still be the driver and your liability rates will go off where you live and park the equipment. Also, IRP will require a physical address staffed by an employee and open to the public during normal business hours so a virtual office won't cut it. They do investigate addresses during the application process too. Pick any state you want and read the IRP manual. It's all there. I suggest you move to another state if the insurance rates in FL are too much to bear.