General Liability: Because you never know what can happen.
Odds are you’ve checked out the other blogs I’ve written that are specific to dealerships and auto mechanics such as Garage Liability, Garagekeepers and Garage Property. If you were wondering if that was it, if those were the only pieces of coverage you need, the answer is simple: nope. You need General Liability too.
General Liability is the true safety net for any business, but especially for those in the auto industry. The exposure to risk is huge, combining aspects of retail, industry, and transportation. What other business has risk from all three of these separate industries?
Let’s take a deeper look at the role of General Liability for dealers and mechanics and see how it protects them.
The Basics
General Liability Insurance for Garage Owners protects your business from accidents and incidents that you are responsible (or liable) for. It protects you from a ton of things that can happen in the day to day running of your business, including coverages like:
Premises and Operations Exposure –
This protects against things that can happen on your property to your customers – or anyone else that walks on the lot or into your shop.
Think of slipping and falling or any other kind of way people could get hurt on your property. This covers their medical expenses and your legal fees if they sue you.
Personal and Advertising Injury –
This coverage protects you from things like libel, slander, invasion of privacy, copyright infringement, or any number of other examples of legal trouble. If you act in way that someone else take offense to and they take you to court, this is the part of the coverage that protects you and helps pay for legal fees and damages.
Products-Completed Operations Exposure –
This is a mouthful of a protection that boils down to this: if you perform faulty or defective work that hurts another person or their property, this is the coverage that protects you.
For the auto business, a good example is if you repair someone’s vehicle incorrectly, and they get into an accident because of it – this part of General Liability will cover the damages.
What is not covered.
General Liability does a lot to protect you from harm. But it doesn’t do everything. Luckily, most of what it doesn’t do is covered by other policies or types of garage insurance coverage. Items not covered include:
- Business Property
- Liability for non-owned vehicles
- Employee accidents or injuries
- Damage to non-owned vehicles
- Criminal activities.
As you can see by the links, each of the above examples are covered by another policy type. Garage insurance should include all pieces of coverage in order to fully protect you from risk.
There is of course one big exception. If you engage in criminal activities, no insurance will cover you. Period. Luckily you’re a stand up person, so we don’t have to worry about that!
Why you need this.
For most businesses, General Liability is the coverage you need the most.
People think that insuring their stuff is the real reason they need insurance. And that makes sense. Stuff is tangible, real, and can get stolen or burn in a fire.
But a skateboarder suing you after kick-flipping off of your loading dock and breaking his leg is more likely than someone stealing your expensive gear.
And no, it probably doesn’t matter that they weren’t supposed to be there.
It’s also likely that getting angry online and leaving a nasty message on someone’s Facebook wall can get you a lawsuit. You may not have meant it when you said, “Terry Bull Auto Parts installs garbage into your car,” but I guarantee their lawyer will tell a jury that you did.
(If there is a Terry Bull Auto Parts, this was only an example. Please don’t sue us.)
While there is a limit to the amount of accidents that can happen to your stuff or your employees, there is simply an unlimited number of things that can bring about a General Liability Claim.
As we say around here, “Anyone can sue anybody for any reason.”
So make sure you not only have General Liability, but that you have enough of it. Get more than you think, as lawsuits can cost you an arm and a leg. And if someone get’s hurt in an accident that your faulty worked caused, damages can run into the hundreds of thousands.
Or millions if people die.
Let’s wrap it up.
Get General Liability. And get a lot of it.
This is a non-negotiable piece of protection that can be the difference between you staying in business or going under. And the list of things that it protects you from are endless.
If you aren’t sure how much coverage you have, or if somehow you don’t have this coverage at all, we need to talk.
Click the link below to schedule a call with an agent who knows this coverage like you do vehicles – inside and out.
Because when it comes to liability, you don’t want to be on the road with your breaks out.
