Auto Mechanic Insurance

Whether you are driving 1 mile, 10 miles, 30 miles, or just around the corner, taking care of your vehicles and making sure they are running correctly is a very important part of our lives. So we do everything we need to keep them running smoothly. That starts out with finding a great and trusted local mechanic to help keep our vehicles rolling for the years to come.

That's a lot of responsibility for a good auto mechanic to undertake. Sometimes they are so involved with making sure your vehicle is repaired that they forget to purchase the necessary insurance. Here we discuss a few important insurance coverages that any auto mechanic needs to purchase to help protect their customers and themselves. 

Owners of garages and repair shops need business insurance to protect their assets from the risks associated with making repairs to other people's vehicles. Any kind of injury, error, or property damage can result in a costly claim or lawsuit. The most important insurance policy for an auto repair shop is garage keepers liability insurance. 

Garage Keepers Liability Coverage

This policy protects you if a customer's vehicle is damaged while it is at your business in your care, custody, and control. There are two levels of coverage that you can choose from: Legal Liability and Direct Primary.

1. Legal Liability offers coverage to the customer if the damage was the mechanic's fault and the auto body shop is legally liable for the damage.
2. Direct Primary covers other problems that can occur, even if the auto body shop is neither negligent nor legally liable, such as a customer's vehicle is stolen right from the parking lot. 

Business Interruption Insurance

Business interruption coverage compensates you for lost income if your business is temporarily closed due to a covered loss under your business policy. Your insurance policy would pay for the loss of income you would experience due to a partial or total interruption. The interruption coverage time period begins with the date of the loss to a covered property and ends on the date when the covered property is repaired, rebuilt, or replaced with reasonable speed and similar quality.

An important component of business interruption insurance is that the loss must be a property loss, such as a fire or a vehicle driving into your building and destroying it. An event such as a pandemic, where businesses are forced to close, is not covered by business interruption insurance since there is no property loss. 

Data Breach Insurance

Your customer's credit card information is stolen while in your care, which legally requires you to take action. Most states have breach notification laws that not only require a business owner to inform any affected individuals of a data breach, but also specify the manner and period in which the business owner must inform customers. 

1. Data Breach Response Expenses: It could cover the expenses you incur when notifying affected individuals of a breach per state laws.
2. Data Breach Liability Coverage: It could cover damages that you are legally obligated to pay when the customers' nonpublic personal information that is lost, stolen, or accidentally released is used fraudulently. It also covers the cost defend lawsuits seeking damages.

These are just a few important coverages that are needed by an auto mechanic shop. Others include business auto insurance, workers' compensation, property and equipment insurance, crime insurance,. etc. Except workers' compensation, many of these can be packed together into one policy.