With over 300 different car dealers insured with us, we see
a lot of hail damage claims. Many of
these storms can quickly generate thousands of dollars in damage in mere
minutes. What if you had a warning that
would give you the time that you need to get your most valuable cars out of
harm’s way before a hailstorm hits your lot?
How much money would that save you in deductible costs, and how much
headache and time would you save in repair efforts? Now there is a way to know exactly when your
inventory is at risk as well as a way to know when the more general warnings on
the radio and television don’t actually apply to your dealership.
AccuWeather has developed a new service that they call
SkyGuard. Skyguard puts meteorologists
at work evaluating the weather risks for your lot’s specific longitude and
latitude. They will inform you if your
inventory is at risk and give you the time you need to move your highest valued
inventory into a safe location. In
addition, you will also know when a more general warning really won’t affect
your specific location so you can rest easy when you see the weather warning
scrolling across your television set.
These warning notifications can be sent to you by both text and email
and SkyGuard will follow up with you until they receive a receipt that you
received the message.
Skyguard aims for a minimum notice of 30 minutes for hail
storms. They can also warn you of
tornadoes, lightning, rainfall, flash flooding, snow, high winds or ice if any
of these pose a risk to your business.
They can customize your warning criteria so that you can choose exactly
the information that you need to know.
Of course all the warnings in the world aren’t going to be
much help to you if you don’t have a safe place to park your most valuable inventory
before the storm arrives. But if you do
have some expensive inventory items and a safe place where you could park them
in the event of a storm, then you might want to consider this service for your
used car dealership. As of this time I am
not aware of a dealers insurance policy that provides any premium reduction for
dealers who purchase this service, but I feel that eventually this kind of
warning service will be subsidized in some way by your insurance company. When that time comes, I will certainly blog
about it to let you know.
While we are discussing hail damage to dealer inventory, it
is a good to remind you that if you carry co comprehensive coverage on your
inventory, then you will more than likely face a pretty large deductible in the
event of a hail storm that hits your lot.
The reason for this is that most comprehensive deductibles on dealers
insurance policies are structured so that you have a per vehicle deductible
that usually caps out at 5 vehicles. This can creep up to a large number in the
event of widespread damage to your inventory.
Most of our dealers insurance policies are different though and have
only a per loss deductible. An example
might help you see why this matters so much.
Assume that you have a $500 comprehensive deductible with a 5 car limit
on that deductible on your policy. After
your lot is hit by hail, you will have to pay a $500 deductible on the first
five cars that were damaged for a total of $2500. If you had instead chosen a per loss
deductible, then you would only be paying for the first $500 of damage in this
same loss scenario.
Clinard Insurance
Group, located in Winston Salem, NC, is very active in dealers
insurance. Currently we insure more than
300 used car dealerships all across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Tennessee and Virginia. We want all used
car dealers to be informed consumers when it comes to buying insurance for
their dealership. If you would like help
with your dealers insurance, please visit us on the web at www.TheAutoDealersHelper.com or
call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557.
No comments:
Post a Comment