10/04/2026
Tow Operators send to your state elected officials
For proposed legislation:
Require Public Liability and Property Damage (PLPD) Coverage to Include Highway Recovery and Clearance Costs
Heavy-duty towing and recovery companies should not be expected to subsidize highway recovery operations simply because a motor carrier chose to operate without adequate insurance coverage or because a broker tendered freight to an underinsured carrier. Just as state and local agencies are able to recover the costs associated with emergency response and roadway cleanup, recovery operators should have a clear path to full reimbursement for the essential public safety services they provide.
When a commercial vehicle overturns, catches fire, loses its cargo, or causes a major roadway incident, towing and recovery professionals are expected to respond immediately, often in dangerous conditions and at all hours of the day or night. Their mission is to protect the motoring public, mitigate environmental hazards, preserve infrastructure, and reopen critical transportation corridors as quickly as possible.
To accomplish this, recovery companies deploy highly specialized equipment and personnel, including rotators, heavy wreckers, excavators, skid steers, telehandlers, roll-off dumpsters, recovery trailers, and trained labor crews. These resources represent substantial investments and incur significant operating costs before a carrier's insurance status is ever determined. Recovery companies must pay for fuel, employee wages, equipment maintenance, repairs, chains, straps, rigging, disposal fees, and replacement equipment regardless of whether adequate insurance exists.
While routine operating expenses are part of doing business, absorbing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in unreimbursed recovery costs because a carrier was uninsured or underinsured is not. No private business providing an essential emergency service should be forced to bear losses resulting from another party's failure to maintain adequate insurance coverage.
Greater accountability is needed throughout the transportation industry. Brokers and shippers that tender freight should be required to verify that carriers maintain sufficient liability, cargo, and recovery-related insurance before loads are awarded. Likewise, minimum insurance requirements for commercial motor carriers should be updated to reflect the actual costs associated with modern heavy-duty recovery, environmental mitigation, cargo cleanup, and highway clearance operations.
Public Liability and Property Damage (PLPD) policies should explicitly provide coverage for recovery, cleanup, and roadway clearance costs arising from commercial vehicle incidents. When a crash creates a hazard that requires emergency recovery services, the financial responsibility for those services should rest with the parties whose operations created the need, not with the company responding to protect the public.
No recovery company should have to choose between clearing a highway for public safety and risking a significant financial loss because another party failed to carry adequate insurance. Heavy-duty recovery operators perform a critical public safety function that benefits motorists, law enforcement, emergency responders, transportation agencies, and the economy as a whole.
Highways are reopened because recovery professionals answer the call. Those companies deserve to be compensated fairly, promptly, and in full for the services they provide.
