Shopping Garage Keepers Insurance

[s.hughes]

I need some recommendations on learning more about garage keepers insurance. Like basically where to start, how to shop for it, any information would be helpful.

 

To give you a little background on where I am coming from: My brother and I are taking over the business, our father is 69 and is working his way into retirement. He has done a great job on teaching us how to run a shop, we are both very good service managers, however we have little experience on the business end of things. The reason that I am so interested in insurance is at the end of last year we were dropped by our underwriter, not for too many claims, just because, well I don't really know why. I think it had more to with the insurance company and the direction they were heading. Anyway our insurance guy scrambled to get us insurance at the 11th hour and needless to say we are paying out the nose.

 

We have 2 locations and do general automotive repair. The kicker is, we also have 2-3 service trucks and do on site tire repair for semi and construction tires. Yes, I know, there is my expensive insurance issue. However we have never paid this much before and I think part of it is who we are dealing with.

 

With all that being said I am trying to be proactive and learn as much as I can, so that maybe when it is time to renew we can get this expense a little more inline.

 

Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Scott

[Hands On]

I would find a good agent and start there. I would also seperate the two businesses completly, different names, books, licenses ect, and get each it's own insurance. That way you will know for sure if both businesses are making you money or if you should let one go to focus on the other.

[Mario]

Erie insurance is very friendly to automotive shops. I have an agent that specializes in auto shop policies. So far I am happy with them (but also have never had to make a claim yet).

[weighit]

repeat

Edited May 6, 2015 by weighit

[weighit]

I too had a very good agent and he suggested we split the 3 businesses we had under one name. My rates were pretty high to begin with but when we divided the pot up with three names and three separate operations the total bill dropped quite a bit. I have to say I did have a total of 3 different agents over the 12 years in that location. The first was a friend and I feel took advantage of the friendship, the second was lazy on our behalf and the third was an all star.

[weighit]

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Edited May 6, 2015 by weighit

[weighit]

delete

Edited May 6, 2015 by weighit

[xrac]

Erie insurance is very friendly to automotive shops. I have an agent that specializes in auto shop policies. So far I am happy with them (but also have never had to make a claim yet).

Erie is a good company as well as Auto Owners, Pekin Insurance, and Ohio Casulaty.