Your Food Truck Insurance Experts
Food truck insurance typically combines commercial auto for the truck, general liability, commercial property for cooking equipment, product liability for foodborne illness claims, spoilage coverage, and workers’ compensation. A personal auto policy generally excludes business use, and in California workers’ compensation is required once you have any employees behind the window.
A food truck is a kitchen, a vehicle, and a storefront rolled into one, which means it carries the risks of all three. We help California food truck owners build a program that covers the truck, the kitchen, and everything you serve out the window.
Restaurant Insurance as Part of a Food Truck Insurance Package
Restaurant-style coverage for a mobile business: California food trucks operate within a local permit environment that varies by city and county, so your operating footprint and where you park can shape your exposures. The products and completed operations part of the general liability policy is what answers a foodborne illness claim, so the policy has to include it.
Commercial Auto Insurance That Protects Your Food Truck
Commercial auto insurance for your truck: the truck itself needs commercial auto coverage, since a personal auto policy typically excludes business use. Beyond the drive, cooking equipment brings a real fire risk from grease, open flame, and hot surfaces, and generators and propane add their own hazards. Coverage can include:
- Commercial auto for the truck itself.
- General liability for third-party bodily injury and property damage.
- Commercial property and equipment coverage for cooking gear.
- Product liability for foodborne illness claims.
- Workers’ compensation for employees.
- Spoilage coverage for food lost to equipment failure or power loss.
A food truck carries kitchen exposure and road exposure at once, so it is rated against two of the categories we work in.
California food truck insurance, explained
What permits does a California food truck need before it can sell?
A health permit and a commissary, before anything else. The California Retail Food Code says a food facility "shall not be open for business without a valid permit" under Health and Safety Code section 114381. Section 114295 requires every mobile food facility to operate in conjunction with a commissary or another approved base. In Los Angeles County the truck is inspected, graded and stickered like a restaurant. None of that asks for insurance. The insurance requirements come from the vehicle code, the labor code and the venues you park at.
Can I insure the truck on my personal auto policy?
Not in any way you would want to rely on. The personal auto policy excludes liability while the vehicle is used in a business, with an exception only for a private passenger auto, a pickup or a van. A "van" for that purpose means one rated at 10,000 pounds or less that is not used to carry goods. Even a step van that squeaks through on paper leaves the kitchen build-out uninsured and the business misdescribed to the carrier. A food truck belongs on a business auto policy with the truck's real value declared, including the kitchen.
Does a food truck need general liability if it already has commercial auto?
Yes, because the auto policy answers only for the truck as a vehicle. A customer who trips on your cable at the window, a fire that spreads to the booth next door, and a claim that your food made someone sick are all general liability. The food claim sits in the products and completed operations part of that policy. Many carriers put the general liability and the kitchen contents on a business owners policy or a package and the truck on business auto. A food truck usually holds two policies that need to name the same business.
Is the kitchen equipment covered if there is a fire or a crash?
The auto policy's comprehensive and collision cover the truck, and the build-out only to the extent the value you declared includes it, so tell us the cost of the conversion and not the chassis alone. Removable gear such as the generator, the point-of-sale system, tents and smallwares belongs on inland marine or business personal property coverage. Spoiled stock after a power failure needs spoilage coverage, which no auto policy carries.
What fire-code rules apply to propane and cooking on the truck?
The fire code adopted by Los Angeles County and most local fire agencies, at section 319 on mobile food preparation vehicles, requires an operating permit for any truck whose appliances produce smoke or grease-laden vapors. It also requires an automatic fire-extinguishing system over that cooking and portable extinguishers. Propane is capped at 200 pounds, a listed propane alarm is required, and the gas containers and piping are inspected annually. A carrier will ask for the suppression system tag before it writes the truck, and a fire on a truck without one is a hard claim to win.
Do I need workers' comp for one part-time helper, and what class code applies?
Yes from the first employee, under Labor Code section 3700, and part-time counts. Since 1 September 2024 the WCIRB classifies a truck that prepares hot food under 9081, restaurants not otherwise classified. A truck or cart that sells only cold or packaged food falls under the store classifications instead. The old 9079 code is gone, so a policy still showing it is out of date.
Do events and cities require a certificate of insurance?
Almost all of them. Santa Monica's vehicle vending permit asks for a certificate showing $1,000,000 of coverage, and its event permits ask for $1,000,000 general liability and $1,000,000 auto with the city added as an additional insured by endorsement. Other cities and private event organizers make similar demands. Our clients can request a certificate from us once the additional insured endorsement is on the policy, and our certificate guide explains what a venue is actually asking for.
Do I need commercial plates or a Class B license?
Commercial registration, yes. A vehicle maintained primarily to carry property is a commercial vehicle under Vehicle Code section 260. A truck with a declared gross weight of 10,001 pounds or more pays weight fees and displays the weight decals. A Class B license is only needed above 26,000 pounds or with three axles over 6,000 pounds, so many step-van builds stay on an ordinary Class C.
How do you get a food truck quote from us?
Start a business insurance quote and tell us the truck's year, make and gross weight, the cost of the conversion, where you park and which events you work, and your payroll. Tell us too whether you have a suppression system. Some trucks we can write directly and quickly. Others go to underwriting for approval, or need a wholesale market, and those take longer. Either way you know before you decide. Our restaurant insurance page covers the fixed-location side of the same business.
Permit, fire-code and classification positions current as of September 2026 and specific to California and Los Angeles County; other counties adopt the fire code section locally.
