Insurables — Australian business risk, sourced and dated

Tow truck operators: commercial motor requirements in New South Wales

Cover for vehicles used for business, including utilities, vans and trucks, and liability for damage they cause.

Data as at

Verified for New South Wales

  • Licence liability condition: Yes, and it is the most specific insurance condition of any occupation on this site — TWO distinct policies. The Tow Truck Industry Regulation 2020 requires the licensee to hold public liability insurance AND "on-hook" liability insurance. On-hook cover is the unusual one: it covers vehicles while they are being towed or are attached to the tow truck, which an ordinary public liability policy does not reach. A tow operator carrying only public liability is not compliant. NSW · effective 2020-09-01 NSW Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licence evidence required: Certificates of currency at application, and they are itemised rather than general: a certificate for public liability insurance covering the nominated place of business; for Category A towing work, a further certificate covering the holding yard or yards; and a certificate for on-hook insurance FOR EACH VEHICLE to be operated under the licence, or a completed exemption form where the operator works solely under clause 10 of the Regulation. Per-vehicle evidence means adding a truck is a licensing event, not just a purchase. NSW · effective 2020-09-01 NSW Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licensing body: NSW Fair Trading, under the Tow Truck Industry Act 1998 (NSW) and the Tow Truck Industry Regulation 2020 (NSW). Operator licences and driver certificates are separate; the insurance obligations sit on the operator licence. NSW · effective 2020-09-01 NSW Government · 2026-08-24

What contracts commonly ask for

Principals and head contractors set their own insurance requirements, and those are frequently higher than a licence condition. The requirement that binds is the higher of the two, and both have to be read from the actual document.

What this cover costs

This site publishes no cost benchmark for this cover. A benchmark needs a real sample of documents, and none is published until the sample is large enough to compute a median honestly. A benchmark from a handful of policies is a guess with a decimal point.

Sources