NC Used Car Dealers – Don’t Forget About Workers Compensation Insurance

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in helping used car dealers with their dealers insurance policies. And 95% of the time, when a dealer calls us for insurance, the only policy on his mind is the NC garage insurance policy. But there is another, very important policy that all dealers must consider. And leaving this one out can do a lot more than just ruin your day. It could wipe out your business.

Why so few used car dealers remember to purchase workers compensation insurance is a mystery to me. It probably stems from the nature of their employees since many hire their salespeople as independent contractors. But while hiring them as independent contractors may change how taxes are paid, it will not allow the dealer/owner to avoid paying the losses under North Carolina Workers Compensation law.

In NC, purchasing workers compensation insurance is voluntary if you have 3 or fewer employees. And you don’t have to count your independent contractors as employees either. But here’s the rub. Just because you don’t purchase the insurance, doesn’t mean you are safe from the losses. In fact, not purchasing the insurance policy means you are putting your own assets on the line to pay all claims required by the NC workers compensation statutes. So, if your employee is injured or killed on the job, then your business will have to pay the statutory benefits required by law. Essentially, you have chosen to put yourself in the position of the insurance company for all losses. And a big loss could put most small used car dealers out of business.

Insurance is a good deal for the consumer any time that the consumer can trade a small, affordable, known loss – in this case the workers compensation premium, for a larger, unknown and possibly catastrophic loss. If you own a used car dealership and you have anyone besides yourself working for you in any capacity at all, you owe it to yourself to get a price on a workers compensation policy. You may be surprised at how affordable it is. In this case, going bare is a huge risk. If you are going to go without insurance, please recognize that you have only chosen to shift the risk of loss to yourself in exchange for not paying an annual workers compensation premium that is probably very affordable for you.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we want all insurance consumers to be educated consumers. If you would like help with your dealers insurance, or if you want a workers compensation quote, please call our office, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at www.clinardinsurance.com.

The source information for this article was taken from data found at www.insuranceanswerguy.com.

Garage Insurance – Used Car Dealers and Repair Shops Watch Those Symbols

Garage insurance is a much misunderstood policy form. Very few insurance agents understand exactly when to use it and more importantly exactly how. You can use a garage liability policy to protect a used car dealer, often referred to as dealer’s insurance, or you can use this same form to protect an automotive repair shop or to set up body shop insurance. The trick is to know the symbols. At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in garage insurance and we understand the difference in how to set up used car dealers insurance and auto repair shop garage insurance.

As I mentioned earlier, both types of businesses, auto repair and or body shops and used car dealers both need the garage policy. But what is covered in these policies is driven by the symbols on the policy. This is very important. If you your business is automotive repair or body work but your policy is set up with symbols that would apply to a car dealership, you could find yourself without coverage in the event of a liability loss.

So how do you know if you have the correct symbols and thus the correct form? Pull out your garage policy and look at the first page. Beside each type of coverage, usually to the left, there will be a least one two digit number between 21 and 31. These symbols will describe what is protected by the coverage described beside the number. Here is a list of the most common symbols and what each one protects:

21 Any auto
22 All owned autos
23 Owned private passenger autos only
24 Owned autos other than private passenger
25 Owned autos subject to no fault laws
26 Owned autos subject to Uninsured Motorists law
27 Specifically described autos
28 Hired autos only
29 Non-Owned autos used in the Garage Business
30 Autos Left for Service/Repair/Storage
31 Autos on Consignment

As you have probably figured out, if you are an automobile dealer and you have code 30 on your policy, you would find yourself without coverage. So why not just put code 21 on all coverages? Well, since code 21 is the broadest coverage, you would have to pay more for this insurance policy and in some cases you might be purchasing insurance protection that you didn’t really need.

Take some time to look at your policy carefully and review the symbols for each line of coverage to make sure that they are appropriate for the work you do. If you need help with this process, please feel free to call Clinard Insurance Group, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at http://www.clinardinsurance.com/.

The source material for this article was pulled from http://www.insuranceanswerguy.com/.

Used Car Dealers Insurance – Watch Those Limits

At Clinard Insurance Group we specialize in helping Used Car Dealers with their Garage Liability and Dealer Open Lot Insurance Coverages. We insure over 300 dealers in NC, SC, GA, TN and VA. With that kind of exposure to this industry, we see the policies that a lot of dealers have before they come to us and we see some real messes. One of the scariest mistakes dealers make when buying garage liability insurance is how they set up their liability limits.

Let’s face it, garage liability insurance is a real specialty product. This is an insurance policy written for just one industry. As a result, most agencies only have a couple of these types of policies on the books, if any, and they rarely understand the form completely. If you are a used car dealer and you are trusting your business to an agent who doesn’t currently handle 25 or more dealers just like you, then chances are you are not using a specialist and this could cost you big in many ways. Just because an insurance agent can write the insurance for your dealership doesn’t mean her or she really understands what he or she is doing.

So now what is the liability limit trap? Well in some states, and North Carolina is a classic example, the state government has set up a reinsurance facility. This is a place of last resort where people with bad driving records can still get insurance. The reason this is a problem for dealers is that most insurance companies don’t understand used car dealers and don’t want to insure them. They just assume that these dealers are letting everyone and anyone drive around with the “moveable” dealer tag. They don’t understand your business so they don’t want to write you. So if you call an agent that doesn’t specialize in car dealers and ask him for a quote, the only option he may have for insuring your dealership is the reinsurance facility. So what?

Well here’s the problem. Most of these reinsurance facilities, and NC is one of them, have a very low highest liability limit available. In NC that is $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident bodily injury. So that is all that you could buy from this inexperienced agent. And if you didn’t know better you might believe that this is all you need or all you could ever buy. Nothing could be further from the truth. These limits are very low in terms of the types of claims I have seen incurred by auto dealers. As a dealer, you need to more accurately assess exactly how much insurance you need and then be able to purchase the liability limits that will protect you, your business, and your personal and family assets.

If you are looking for an insurance agent that understands how to insure used car dealers and will take the time to listen to you and help you develop an insurance program that meets your needs and does so for the lowest possible cost, then I suggest you call Clinard Insurance Group, toll free, at 877-687-7557, or visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com.

The source information from this article was pulled from an article at www.insuranceanswerguy.com.

The Dealers Open Lot Deductible Trap

Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, specializes in handling the insurance needs of used car dealers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee. With so many clients in this industry, I thought I should speak out about a little known provision in the dealers open lot coverage that creates a nasty surprise for many dealers after a claim has occurred. I call it the comp deductible trap.

Any dealer that has a substantial investment in his or her inventory should carry dealers open lot insurance as part of his or her Garage Liability Policy. This will provide comprehensive and collision coverage for the inventory on the lot and out on the road and it is the least expensive if you add it to your garage policy. Just like your personal auto insurance, the comprehensive and collision coverage in the dealers open lot protection has deductibles. These deductibles are the first dollar amount that the dealer must pay before the insurance company pays out for the claim. But here is the catch….. the deductible on the comprehensive coverage is almost always a per car deductible. And that can add up.

Let’s say you have 20 cars on your lot and a hail storm hits your dealership. 10 of your cars are very badly damaged. You know that you have comprehensive coverage on your dealers open lot so you pull out your policy and see that you have a $1000 deductible. Okay, you think to yourself, this is bad but I guess I can cough up $1000 since I have 10 cars that are in awful shape. When your claims adjuster shows up to start working on this claim for you he reminds you that the deductible is $1000 per car with a 5 car limit. This is the way most open lot coverages are written. Suddenly your $1000 deductible has turned into $5000 and you are really singing the blues. Your cash flow is wrecked for months.

How can you protect yourself from this trickery? Well, first of all, be sure that you read and understand your policy completely. Also, only do business with an agent that specializes in the garage policy and used car dealers. Your business is very unique in the insurance world and you can’t afford to let and agent that has handled the insurance for 5 or 10 dealers in his career protect you. Let’s face it, your business is one of your most valuable assets and it can lead to your largest liability risks. Don’t let an inexperienced agent practice on learning the garage policy and its one of a kind ins and outs at your expense.

As I mentioned earlier, Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, handles the garage insurance needs for hundreds of used car dealers in 4 states. And the best part is we have found a company that does not have a per car deductible on comprehensive coverage in the dealers open lot insurance. So in the example above, if you were insured with Clinard Insurance Group, you would only pay $1000 for that devastating hail storm and not $5000. You can see how doing business with a specialist can be extremely valuable for you and your company. If you would like more information or help insuring your used car dealership, you can visit us online at www.theautodealershelper.com or call us, toll free at 877-687-7557.

The source material for this article was pulled from http://www.insuranceanswerguy.com/

Garagekeepers Insurance – Direct, Legal Liability, Primary and Excess - what are these choices now?

The Garage Liability policy is one of the most misunderstood types of business insurance policies. It is a unique type of policy and many seasoned professional insurance agents don’t really understand it well. Attached to the garage liability policy, one often finds a coverage called garagekeepers insurance. At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC we understand this form very well and in part 2 of my blogs on garagekeepers insurance I hope to continue to clear up some of the confusion about this policy form.

As we discussed in the my last blog, the garagekeepers form is a coverage that can be added to the garage form and it allows for protection for the your clients vehicles, left in your care while you are repairing them. This coverage includes both comprehensive and collision coverages for those vehicles.

When purchasing this coverage, there are 2 more choices you will need to consider. The first is the question of Direct coverage, verses Legal Liablity coverage. If you purchase direct coverage, then your policy will pay the claims for collision and comprehensive coverage for your client’s vehicles whether you are at fault in the loss or not. If you choose legal liability coverage, then these claims will only be covered if your repair or body shop can be found to be legally liable for the loss. Of course the direct coverage will be a bit more expensive but you may choose it so that you can quickly pay the damages caused to any of your client’s cars.

The second question that you will want to answer is whether or not you want to purchase Primary or Excess coverage on your garagekeepers coverage. Primary coverage means that your insurance policy will pay, first dollar on the covered loss, while excess coverage will only kick in an pay when there is no coverage on your client’s insurance policy, or if the limits of your client’s policy are not high enough to cover the loss. Of course the primary option is more expensive but it may generate better client relationships if you are paying the claim and not forcing them to file on their own personal auto insurance.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we write over 300 garage policies in 4 different states and we can help you make sure that your policy is set up correctly so that you can have the best possible protection at the lowest possible price. Give us a call, toll free at 877-687-7557, or visit us on the web by clicking here.

The source material for this article can be found at The Insurance Answer Guy.

Garagekeepers Insurance – How Does It Really Work?

The Garage Liability policy is one of the most misunderstood types of business insurance policies. It is a unique type of policy and many seasoned professional insurance agents don’t really understand it well. Attached to the garage liability policy, one often finds a coverage called garagekeepers insurance. At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC we understand this form very well and I hope to shed some light on this to eliminate some of the confusion that business owners often have about this protection.

The garage form is a liability based coverage that has been created especially for car dealers and automotive repair shops. Basically if you are in the business of buying, selling or repairing motor vehicles, you will need this coverage. The confusion relating to the garagekeepers coverage I think comes from the name. Just having the name garage in this form confuses people. Auto repair shop owners often wonder why they need garagekeepers coverage if they already have a garage policy. The garagekeepers form is an add-on coverage to the garage policy and it is designed to covers losses occurring to customers’ cars that are left in the possession of the repair shop. So if you are repairing cars and your building burns down in the night and you have 3 cars inside, you had better hope you have garagekeepers coverage on your policy or you will be buying your clients new cars on your own dime.

The garagekeepers form can include either comprehensive coverage, or collision coverage or both. When you purchase this coverage you should try and accurately predict the largest possible loss that could occur to customer cars left on your premises or repaired by your shop. You will also want to choose appropriate deductibles for the comprehensive and collision coverages.

In my next blog I will discuss the differences between direct primary and excess liability coverage for the garagekeepers form. As you can see, insuring a repair or body shop or a used car dealership requires an unusual coverage form that is not well understood by a lot of insurance agencies. If you own a repair shop, or a body shop, or if you own a used car dealership, you need to make sure that you are using an agent that specializes in these types of businesses. At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we write over 300 garage policies in 4 different states and we can help you make sure that your policy is set up correctly so that you can have the best possible protection at the lowest possible price. Give us a call, toll free at 877-687-7557, or visit us on the web by clicking here.
The source material for this article can be found at http://www.insuranceanswerguy.com/