Tire Shop Insurance

Garagekeepers Coverage For Customer Vehicles

For the cars in your care, on the lift, in the bay, in the lot overnight.

Garagekeepers insurance may cover customers' vehicles while they are in your care, custody, or control, a gap neither your liability nor your property policy touches. It comes in two flavors worth understanding: legal liability, which pays when your shop is negligent, and direct primary, which responds regardless of fault and keeps a good customer from filing on their own policy for something that happened in your bay.

Garagekeepers coverage can help pay for:

• Fire, theft, or vandalism involving customer vehicles at your shop.
• Damage on the lift, in the bay, or during a road test.
• A customer car struck in your lot overnight.

Workers Compensation For Tire Techs

For the crew wrestling wheels, machines, and compressed air all day.

Workers' compensation may cover medical bills and lost wages when a tech is hurt on the job, from lifting injuries and machine pinch points to the inflation incidents that make OSHA's rim servicing rules required reading in this trade. Most states require it once you hire, with requirements that vary by state.

Workers' compensation can help pay for:

• Medical care after a shop floor injury.
• Lost wages during recovery.
• Employer liability defense.

What's Not Covered Under These Policies

Every policy above has an edge, and tire shop claims get denied at predictable ones. These are the gaps we check on every incoming shop.

• Customer vehicles in your care under your liability or property policy alone. Cars in your care, custody, or control need garagekeepers coverage, and the stored winter tire sets in your back room raise the same question.
• Redoing your own faulty work. Liability coverage may pay for the damage caused by a bad install, but the labor to redo the job itself is on the shop.
• Injuries to your own techs, which belong to workers compensation rather than liability coverage.
• Road testing and shuttle runs by drivers never listed with the carrier.
• A breach of the point of sale and customer records without cyber coverage.
• Employment disputes with staff that involve employment practices liability.
• Fines for waste tire storage and disposal violations, which are a compliance matter, not an insurable loss.
• Wear, tear, and rust on lifts and machines, which is maintenance, not insurance.

The broader list lives in our rundown of what general liability typically does not cover.

Did you know? The customer's car on your lift is not covered by your general liability policy or your property policy. Liability excludes property in your care, custody, or control, and your property form covers your property, not theirs. Garagekeepers exists precisely to fill that hole, and shops without it are self insuring every vehicle in the building.