Garage Insurance

Often yes, and on some losses it has to. Where the customer carries comprehensive or collision, their own policy can respond to damage to their vehicle, and under a direct excess basis it is expected to go first. Three things push a loss back onto the customer whatever basis you bought. Garagekeepers is written by peril, so a shop that took specified causes of loss without collision has nothing for a test-drive accident. Theft by your own employee is excluded. Personal belongings inside the car are excluded or sublimited. Worth knowing before you tell a customer you are covered.

Work from the peak, not the average. The measure is the total value of customer vehicles on your premises at the worst moment, which is usually overnight, over a weekend, or when a job is waiting on parts. Then check how the limit is arranged. Some forms state a limit per location, some per occurrence, and the deductible may apply per vehicle rather than per event, which matters when hail or a break-in reaches a whole row of cars. High-value or collector vehicles can exceed a standard limit on their own.

It turns on which basis the coverage was written on, and there are three. Legal liability responds only where the business is found responsible, so fault has to be established, and a customer whose car was hailed on in your lot gets nothing from you. Direct primary responds regardless of fault and pays first, which keeps the customer out of their own policy. Direct excess also responds regardless of fault, but where you are not liable it sits behind the customer’s own physical damage coverage and commonly reimburses their deductible. Forms differ on how direct excess behaves when you are liable, so read the other insurance condition on yours.

Generally yes. General Liability covers bodily injury and property damage arising from your operations, but a customer’s vehicle in your custody is usually excluded, because it is treated as property in your care, custody, or control. Garage Keepers is what addresses those vehicles. Whether it is written on a legal liability or a direct basis changes what has to be shown at claim time, so it is worth confirming which form you have.

The repair you got wrong is not the same as the damage that repair caused. Faulty workmanship, defective parts, and the cost of redoing the job are excluded, and garage liability does not add that back. What garage liability reaches is the resulting bodily injury or property damage if the bad repair causes a loss. Beyond that, personal belongings left inside a customer’s car are commonly excluded or sublimited, employee tools sit elsewhere, and vehicles the business owns belong on auto physical damage or dealer inventory coverage instead. Theft responds only where that peril was actually purchased.