Auto Services Insurance
Auto services insurance is built around garage liability and garagekeepers coverage, which are written for the operations of a vehicle service business and for customers’ vehicles in your care, custody, and control. Programs usually add commercial property for lifts, tools and diagnostic equipment, commercial auto, products and completed operations, and workers’ compensation. In California, workers’ compensation is required once you have any employees.
An auto services business takes in property worth more than most of its own equipment and keeps it overnight. That is the exposure a standard business policy does not carry well, because the customer’s vehicle is neither your property nor an ordinary third-party liability. Add torches, lifts, paint, solvents, road tests, and work that is warranted after the customer drives away, and the risk sits in several places at once. We help California service and repair businesses of every kind build coverage around the vehicles and the work.
What does auto services insurance cover?
- Garage liability for the operations of a vehicle service or repair business.
- Garagekeepers coverage for customer vehicles in your care, custody, and control.
- Commercial property for lifts, diagnostic equipment, tools, and the build-out.
- Products and completed operations for parts installed and work performed.
- Workers’ compensation, required in California once you have any employees.
- Commercial auto for service trucks, parts runners, loaners, and road tests.
Who needs it? General repair and service shops, transmission, brake and muffler specialists, engine and machine shops, collision and body shops, paint and refinishing, detailing, window tinting and vehicle wraps, audio and accessory installers, tire and wheel shops, quick lube, smog and diagnostic stations, mobile mechanics, fleet maintenance operations, and dealerships across California.
California registers automotive repair dealers through the Bureau of Automotive Repair, and several specific services, including smog inspection and repair, carry their own licensing on top of that registration. Which registrations and licenses apply depends on the services you actually perform, so the Bureau of Automotive Repair is the source rather than a general summary. Workers’ compensation is required in California once a business has any employees. A lease, a franchise agreement, or a fleet service contract may set its own insurance requirements, and each of those documents controls on its own terms.
How we help: We start with what comes through the door and how long it stays, because a tint and wrap business, a collision center, and a mobile mechanic hold customer vehicles very differently. From there we help you match the garagekeepers limit and basis to how many vehicles are actually on the lot at once, which is the number most often set once and never revisited.
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