Garage liability, and the customer's car sitting in your bay
The moment you take possession of somebody else's vehicle, you have an exposure no general liability policy covers, and no commercial auto policy covers either.
Sa sa touche
- Liability arising from your operations and premises
- Garagekeepers legal liability: damage to customer vehicles in your care, custody and control
- Vehicles you own and drive, including test drives and shuttling
- Products and completed operations, for the repair that fails after the customer leaves
- Optional false pretence, which answers the vehicle released to the wrong person
Care, custody and control
Standard liability policies exclude damage to property in your care, custody and control, and a customer's car in your bay is precisely that. Garagekeepers is the coverage written to fill that exclusion, and it comes in legal liability form, which pays when you are at fault, and direct forms, which pay regardless. The difference matters most in a fire or a storm, when nobody was at fault and every car on the lot is damaged.
What moves the premium
- What you do: repair, body work, detailing, towing, sales, or a mix.
- How many customer vehicles are on the lot at once, which sets the garagekeepers limit.
- Whether the lot is fenced, lit and monitored.
- Your employees' driving records, since they move the vehicles.
Set the garagekeepers limit to a full lot, not an average one
The limit needs to cover the worst night, not the typical one. A hailstorm or a fire does not damage the average number of cars on your lot, and a limit set to the average is a limit set short.
Kesyon moun poze vre
I am a mobile mechanic. Do I need this?
Usually yes, in a form written for it. The customer's vehicle is in your control whether the work happens in your bay or in their driveway.
Work it out before anybody sells you anything
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