Auto repair shop insurance in Spokane
Your liability policy specifically excludes the thing your business is built on — other people’s cars, parked in your bays overnight.
Garagekeepers is the policy that matters
General liability contains a care, custody and control exclusion, and every customer vehicle in your shop falls inside it. Garagekeepers coverage is the endorsement that puts them back in. The limit needs to reflect the total value of vehicles on your lot on your busiest night — not an average — because a fire or a hailstorm does not take them one at a time.
There are also two forms of it: direct primary, which pays regardless of fault, and legal liability, which only pays when you are legally responsible. Legal liability is cheaper and leaves you arguing with a customer about fault while they are standing in your office. Worth understanding which one you have.
Test drives and the courtesy shuttle
A technician road-testing a repair, or a service writer running a customer home, is business use of a vehicle. Commercial auto with the right symbols covers it; a personal policy will not, and the exclusion gets applied at claim time. If you lend loaner cars, that is a further conversation again.
Fluids, and what the standard form excludes
Waste oil, solvents, brake fluid and refrigerant all carry environmental exposure that the standard pollution exclusion removes. Limited pollution endorsements exist and are inexpensive relative to a cleanup. If you store meaningful quantities on site, or have an older building with floor drains, it is worth having before you need it.
Biggest exposures for auto repair shops
- Damage to customer vehicles in your care, custody or control
- Test-drive and shuttle collisions
- Lift, hoist and compressed-air equipment accidents
- Fire and pollution exposure from fuel, solvents and waste oil
Pre-filled for your trade. Two minutes.
Coverage
What auto repair shops usually carry
General Liability
The baseline policy.
Read moreCommercial Auto
Coverage for the vehicles your business owns, leases, rents or asks employees to drive.
Read moreWorkers' Compensation
Required in Washington for nearly every employer.
Read moreCommercial Property
Covers your building, equipment, inventory and improvements against fire, theft, water and storm damage.
Read moreQuestions
Auto Repair Shops insurance FAQs
Damage to customer vehicles while they are in your care — fire, theft, vandalism, collision and weather while the vehicle is at your shop. It is the coverage that fills the care, custody and control gap in general liability.
Enough to cover every customer vehicle on your premises at your busiest point, not a typical day. Owners routinely set this from an average and find it short after a fire or a hail event that hits the whole lot at once.
Under commercial auto rather than garagekeepers, and only if the policy is written with the right coverage symbols. This is a common gap — confirm it rather than assume it.
Other trades
We write these too
General Contractors
Registration, a bond, liability and workers’ comp — general contractors carry more moving parts than any trade we write, and the most contract-driven requirements.
Read moreRoofers
The hardest trade in construction to insure, and the one where carrier appetite narrows fastest.
Read moreElectricians
Low claim frequency, high claim severity.
Read morePlumbers
Every job you touch carries water, and water finds its way into places that cost far more to repair than the work you were paid for.
Read moreStart with your trade. We will take it from there.
Tell us what the business does and we will pre-select the coverage it normally needs, then compare carriers for you. About two minutes, no obligation.
Prefer to talk it through? Call (509) 944-0847.