Equipment insurance helps protect contractors and rental businesses, but it’s just not as straightforward as popping over and picking up a loaner vehicle. There is an expense, and heavy equipment isn’t typically easily transportable. Time is on the line. Not having the right equipment operating, off the lot, or not having it repaired promptly can have very meaningful impacts. The 2025 market has seen changes, as a result of the impacts tied to tariffs and inflation, customers have increased their focus on used and rental equipment. With this growth, what might that mean for insurance and keeping rental businesses and contractors alike protected?
Rental connected with Mike Medeiros, vice president of commercial equipment at Assurant. In September 2025, Assurant partnered with Evident to establish an AI-based solution for equipment rental companies to check a customer’s insurance protection. The partnership enables Assurant to provide a more robust rental protection solution, including real-time verification of a customer’s existing coverage.
Mike MedeirosAssurant
With more than a decade at Assurant, Mike has held multiple leadership roles centered on business development, strategic planning and growth, and operational excellence. He is known for accelerating performance, building high-impact partnerships, and delivering innovative, customer-centric solutions that expand market presence and drive sustained business results.
Within the context of Assurant, Assurant Global Automotive works with various dealers and dealer groups. Part of that organization is its commercial equipment business, which consists of three primary pillars:
- Automatic Insurance is distributed through lending institutions or financial institutions, aiming to not only protect the end customer, but also themselves as it relates to the assets they're financing or leasing to customers.
- Heavy Trucking is focused on a variety of risk management products, including physical damage insurance, gap insurance, and extended service contracts in the commercial trucking segment.
- Heavy Equipment is focused on agriculture, construction, and forestry/logging. Assurant provides a variety of risk management products including extended service contracts and physical damage as well as rental insurance with coverage distributed through manufacturers or directly through dealer relationships.
The products available in the Heavy Trucking and Heavy Equipment pillars are similar; for instance, ESC, Loss Damage Waiver (LDW), and standard PDI are available on both. These pillars focus on different markets.
Q. Assets on the equipment rental lot can range from compact to light equipment, and even general tools. Is there a part of that which is primarily covered, or should renters insure every asset in their fleet?
Generally speaking, our perspective is that having protection across your rental fleet is the ideal scenario. What it really does for end customers as well as for dealers is reduce variability and risk, and the chance of having a loss that is not covered in some way, shape, or form, which can have meaningful impacts from a financial perspective to both the renter and end-customer
It’s important to note that there are a lot of dynamics that drive protection plans within a fleet. For example, if you're a consumer looking to rent a high-value piece of equipment that may have a higher risk of damage because of the usage type, there could be a perceived greater value in having coverage on those than on other assets in the fleet. But, due to the industries we're talking about, unplanned downtime and other issues can certainly arise when you least expect it, and the impacts can be material to both dealers and customers regardless of equipment value.
That matters from a consumer and dealer (rental) perspective.
If you're an end user, you are renting a piece of equipment to get a job done; it impacts your livelihood. If that piece of equipment is damaged without proper coverage for repair, then the dealer may not have the financial depth to have it repaired immediately, and you could lose access to the equipment needed.
From a dealer/rental perspective, you could be constraining your ability to drive income and be held accountable for repairs while having pieces of your rental fleet that are out-of-service.
Uptime is extremely critical. When equipment gets damaged, the quicker you can repair it to get it either back into the rental fleet or back into a customer's hands is key.
Q. How often are equipment rental companies not insured?
One of the advantages of the recent partnership that we announced with Evident is that they are data and technology-driven. This gives us at Assurant additional insight into the business and the industry overall. What we’ve seen is that only about 25 percent of rental customers have coverage that fully meets the dealer’s insurance requirements.
While 25 percent is fairly low, we also see anywhere between 15 to 25 percent of rental customers that may have required coverage at the outset, but do not maintain that coverage throughout the entire length of the rental. There's risk there as well and all the more reason our partnership with Evident is such a great fit — we can determine up-front if there are coverage gaps and, if so, immediately provide protection with our LDW product. In a situation where an end customer has no coverage, the LDW product offers a real-time solution.
Where we do see a lot of gaps is when the business owner or customer believes that the customer has the appropriate insurance coverage but in reality they do not. At time of rental, the dealer will ask for a certificate or proof of insurance and the process of validating whether the insurance meets the needs. This is where our partnership with Evident makes a huge impact. Evident is able to take that certificate of insurance and almost in real time, completely AI-driven, compare the coverages from the certificate or proof of insurance against the actual insurance requirements.
The process immediately provides a quick response to say “yes, this meets the coverage requirement” or “no, it does not and here are the gaps.” It's helping both the dealer and end customer align around what coverage is and isn't there and provides a solution to help close the transaction and get the customer the equipment they need.
Q. What other gaps can you speak about?
A lot of the gaps come down to the actual coverages themselves. For example, even though the customer may have their own commercial insurance, their insurance may not cover theft and loss, wind and hail, or other specific types of perils. That's where we see a lot of the gaps come in and it’s not only on the specific types of perils that are covered, but also from an actual coverage perspective. If the customer is a smaller business and has a project that requires them to rent a larger asset than they would have in their own fleet, it is likely that the coverages they have are not going to be adequate to cover the various perils for that equipment being rented.
Q. What are the biggest issues that dealers and equipment rental businesses misunderstand about the risk management issues and insurance?
A lot of what we've seen in the industry this year is because of the reduction in new originations and new retails. A lot of our dealer customers, dealer group customers, or even original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners are working with their dealers to move more of their own equipment into their rental fleet. Rental and rental fleet-related income this year, because of a range of dynamics, has become an even more critical part of their business.
Based upon the statistics we see, there's a perception that there is more adequate coverage than there really is. As I mentioned, only about 25 percent of customers, based on what we have seen, truly have the coverages that meet all of the individual requirements. We believe there is an inaccurate perception around there being more adequate coverage than there is, which creates risk for all involved.
The other aspect, from an equipment rental organization or direct from the dealer, is there's some additional income there for them as well. In the case of equipment rentals, it protects the consumer from any unplanned, out-of-pocket expenses or unknown gaps in their insurance.
We pay the manufacturer's suggested retail price on parts and pay shop labor rates as we reimburse for claims. That gives the dealer the opportunity, in addition to protecting their equipment, for additional income.
Q. What trends have you recognized this year (2025)?
This year, we're seeing an increased focus from past years on rentals, and we believe that isn’t going to change. When you look at the major equipment manufacturers and what's happening in the economy, there's certainly a pretty consistent view. It’s not unilateral by any means, but the sentiment is we are going to continue to see pressure on the cost of new equipment, cost of parts, and overall cost of repairs.
This year has reinforced our beliefs that the emphasis on rentals and the share of a business owner’s equipment fleet sourced through rentals will continue to grow because it provides stability and reduces risk. It eliminates a lot of uncertainty, but most importantly, still allows the end customer to get their jobs done right.
Q. Trade show season is right around the corner with World of Concrete, CONEXPO-CON/AGG, and The ARA Show. Many use these shows to educate their purchasing decisions. Similarly, are there seasons for the insurance industry?
Yes, but it varies. If you think about the segments that Assurant focuses on specifically for rentals, including construction and agriculture, each have their unique seasonality trends. On the agriculture side, seasonality makes a huge difference. This includes geography, weather, and the specific windows for planting and harvest season.
Along with that, if you envision a heat map, you will see very different levels of activity in the agriculture world across the course of the map, largely driven by weather. For example, the southeast U.S. can be a lot more active throughout the year, impacting businesses there compared to businesses focused on agriculture in the northeast.
On the construction side, for weather reasons alone, it’s a bit of a different seasonality there. What we're seeing is the actual ebbs and flows of the seasonality are slightly normalizing. What I mean by that is there is more construction happening across all aspects and at all times of the year than we have seen historically. A lot of that is still influenced by geography, but what we're seeing is as the government invests more into infrastructure projects, situations like storm-damaged areas and neighborhoods requiring rebuilding are driving activity.
There are a lot of things that go into it. It is either climate-driven or seasonality-driven, but they do look different between the two segments; the same dynamics also apply to the forestry/logging sector.
