Garbage Truck Insurance
A garbage truck spends its day at walking pace in residential streets, stopping and starting hundreds of times before lunch.
We arrange garbage truck insurance that covers the vehicle, the lifting and compaction gear, and the liability that comes with working a kerbside route.
Cover shaped around waste collection work, not a generic motor template.
Cover for the Truck That Runs the Route
A garbage truck is not a skip truck and it is not a tipper. It runs a fixed collection route, lifts wheelie bins into a compaction body and carries the waste itself until the body is full.
That shape of work creates its own exposures. Hundreds of stops a day, constant reversing, and a lifting arm working within a metre of parked cars, letterboxes and people.
The load is the other half of it. Anything can end up in a bin, and hot ashes and lithium batteries start fires inside compaction bodies across Australia every year.
We structure cover that follows the truck through the whole route, including the body, the lifter and the damage a collection round can do to someone else's property.
Garbage Truck Insurance is one of the vehicles we cover under our Commercial Vehicle Insurance.
“The claim rarely comes from the open road. It comes from the fiftieth stop of the morning, in a narrow street, with the arm out.”
Paul CohalanFounding Principal Broker, All Trucks InsuranceWhat Garbage Truck Insurance Typically Covers
Cover is tailored to how you run, and a garbage truck policy generally includes the following.
- Accidental damage, collision and rollover to the truck
- Damage to the compaction body, packer blade and hydraulic rams
- Damage to the bin lifter, grabber arm or rear loading gear
- Fire in the hopper or body, including fires started by the load
- Fire, theft and attempted theft of the vehicle
- Third-party property damage, including parked vehicles, kerbs, letterboxes and fencing
- Towing, recovery and salvage after an incident
- Replacement vehicle or downtime options while repairs are arranged
- Cover while collecting, lifting and tipping bins on route
Cover varies by insurer and how you operate. We confirm exactly what is and isn’t included before you rely on it.
The Risks a Garbage Truck Faces
A collection route puts a heavy truck somewhere a standard road policy was never written for.
Fires Started by the Load
Hot ashes, gas bottles and lithium batteries go into household bins every week. A fire inside a compaction body is hard to put out and often writes off the body.
Low Speed Damage on Residential Streets
Narrow streets, parked cars, bins left in odd places and reversing without a clear view. Most collection claims happen at under ten kilometres an hour.
Bin Lifter and Compaction Failure
The lifter and the packer cycle hundreds of times a day. When a ram, hose or arm lets go mid-cycle, the repair bill and the downtime land together.
Cover Types That Work With Garbage Truck Insurance
Waste collection operators usually arrange one or two of these alongside the truck policy.
Get Garbage Truck Insurance Sorted Properly
Talk to a specialist transport and plant broker who knows what your asset is worth and how it works.
Call 1300 78 78 25Other Vehicles & Equipment We Cover
Most operators run more than one type of asset. These are the ones most often insured alongside it.
Get a Garbage Truck Insurance Quote
Tell us about your asset and how you use it. We’ll arrange cover that fits and respond within 1 business day.
Call us1300 78 78 25Garbage Truck Insurance: Frequently Asked Questions
No, and it is worth being clear about because the two get lumped together. A garbage truck runs a collection route, tips wheelie bins into a compaction body and carts the waste itself. A skip truck carries one bin at a time, sets it down on a customer site and comes back for it later. Different machines, different exposures, and different policies. If you run skip trucks, our skip bin truck page is the one you want.
Yes, all three. A front lift takes commercial bins up over the cab, a rear loader is fed at the back, and a side loader uses a grabber arm on the kerb side. Tell us which you run and how many, and the policy describes the right machine instead of a generic truck.
They should be, and that is worth checking rather than assuming. The body and the lifting gear are usually the most expensive part of the truck, so we make sure they are described and valued in the policy rather than folded into a single vehicle figure.
Fires started by the load are a known and growing problem in Australian waste collection, most often from lithium batteries and hot ashes. Fire cover is standard on a truck policy, but insurers want to know how you manage the risk, so we put your procedures in front of them rather than leaving them to assume the worst.
That is a third-party property damage claim and it is the most common one in kerbside collection. It sits under the liability section of the policy, and we size that section for the streets you actually work rather than accepting a default figure.
Yes. Motor fleet insurance covers several trucks under one renewal with a shared claims history, which usually reads better to an insurer than a handful of separate policies.
Compliance Disclaimer: This information is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Please consider the relevant Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) before making any decision.