Garage Insurance – Division I or Division II?

It is often said that the garage insurance policy is one of the most misunderstood forms of insurance. The problem is that this form of insurance essentially is a hybrid of a general liability insurance policy and a business auto insurance policy. More than that though, this form is a specialized form, used only for auto body and repair shops and auto dealers. Given that, many agents, who don’t specialize in helping these specific industries with their insurance needs, don’t really understand the ins and outs of the garage insurance policy and as a result they may issue a policy to you under the wrong form. So how do you know if you have the right protection?

First of all, understand that although the garage liability policy is appropriate for both an automotive repair shop and an auto dealer, within that group, you need to have the correct classification on your garage insurance policy. There are 2 different divisions of coverage on the garage policy, Division I and Division II. These divisions not only affect the policy form itself, but they also impact on the rating structure and how your final premium is determined. For these reasons, it is important that you have your policy set up correctly in the first place whether you are buying auto dealers insurance or automotive repair insurance.

Division I is the division that should be used if your business is an auto dealership. If however, your business is automotive repair or body work, then your garage liability policy should be written as a division II garage insurance policy. If you are unsure whether or not your policy is set up correctly, you can check to see which division your policy is written on by checking the declarations page of your garage insurance policy.

What happens if you are involved in auto sales and auto repair? If that is the case, then your policy should be written on the Division I form.

As you can see, there are a lot of tripwires out there for business who repair or sale cars who are looking for a garage insurance policy. You need an insurance agent who specializes in the garage insurance policy and helping both car dealers and automotive repair shops with their insurance needs. At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we are that specialist. Our used car dealer clients and our auto and body repair shop clients are located all over NC, SC, GA, TN and Va. If we can help you with your garage insurance questions, or if you would like a quote on your current insurance program, please give us a call, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us our auto repair and body shop web page or our used car dealers insurance help site.

The information used for this article can be found in its entirety at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Grading and Paving Contractors Insurance – Watch Out For X,C and U

Grading, paving and excavation contractors insurance programs require a specialized approach to be sure that they are properly covered for the unique exposures that are present in their work. One often misunderstood area of their insurance that can lead them into trouble has to do with the XCU exclusion on the general liability policy. This is an area that needs to be reviewed and discussed at each renewal to make sure that you don’t lose or miss coverage that you need.

Let’s start by stating that the basic general liability policy that comes to you off the shelf so to speak will always start out with the XCU exclusion in place. So what is this exclusion? The X stands for explosion, the C for collapse and the U for underground. The general liability policy does not cover losses from digging, trenching etc that cause explosions, are caused by collapse, or do damage to underground property. With that in mind, grading, paving and excavating contractors need to pay careful attention to this exclusion.

So, if you are in the business of digging around underground, how do you protect yourself from this exclusion? The first line of defense should be your operations practices. You must know what is underground before you dig of course. And if you are doing any excavating, you obviously must take steps to protect yourself and others from a collapse hazard. But if this is your business, then accidents will happen so how do you obtain the insurance protection that you need? Well the answer is that you can buy back this coverage on an item by item basis. Or, if the exposure is very low, you may even pick it up for free. Landscapers insurance and irrigation system installers insurance programs are a good example of situations where the insurance company might throw this in at no charge. Of course this is also possible with graders, pavers and excavators insurance, depending on where and how they work and their past loss histories. But the point here is that you don’t have to change the entire exclusion form to increase your coverage. The way the exclusion form works is that the letters x, c, and u are shown at the top to designate which if any coverages are excluded. You can petition your insurance company to remove one or more of these exclusions from the policy and that gives you back coverage. But you need to stay on top of this and watch each renewal to make sure that the exclusion doesn’t rear its ugly head later on.

This points out the need for grading and paving contractors to only do business with agents and companies who specialize in insuring grading and paving firms. At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we do specialize in helping grading contractors and paving contractors with their insurance needs, be it workers compensation insurance, general liability insurance, or insurance for their trucks and commercial vehicles. If we can help you with and insurance second opinion, or if you would like to put our vast experience and expertise to work for you, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at our grader, paver and excavators insurance help page.

The source information for this article can be found at the original blog post at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Auto Dealers Insurance – Are You Prepared For Hail Storms?

Used car dealers have a seasonal demon to watch out for and this is the time of year it rears its head. I’m talking about hailstorms. If one sweeps across your lot you are likely to suffer a huge amount of property damage. In fact, some of the biggest claims we see are from these Spring and Summer hailstorms. Do you know if you have the right protection?

Hailstorms are often local in their impact but if it happens over your lot, you can expect huge losses to your inventory. Most used car dealers have their inventory stored outside and are vulnerable to hail losses but this is the type of protection that many car dealers don’t think about until it is too late. So how do you know if you have coverage?

Well fortunately the garage insurance policy is a standardized form so it is easy to know if you have the coverage. Hail coverage is a part of your comprehensive coverage which is part of the dealers open lot coverage for your cars. The dealers open lot insurance coverage will have a section with a limit and deductible for both collision and comprehensive coverages.

Pull out your policy right now and check to see that you have a limit of coverage for comprehensive coverage on your dealers open lot section. Now, also check out how the deductible reads. The standard form has a per vehicle deductible and a maximum per loss deductible. The per loss limit is typically 5 times the per vehicle deductible. So, if you have a $500 deductible on your comprehensive per vehicle, then you probably also have a $2500 maximum deductible per event. There are a few companies out there that set their policies up so that the only deductible is per loss, not per vehicle. This is an important distinction. In my previous example this would increase your claim payment from the insurance company by $2000. For more information about per vehicle deductibles and what is available out there, read my earlier blog here.

If you need any help at all interpreting your deductibles or how they might pay in a claim, please feel free to give us a call, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at www.TheAutoDealersHelper.com. We specialize in helping used car dealers with their insurance needs all across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia

The source information for this article can be found on articles at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

NC Homeowners Insurance Policy – Sewer Backup Insurance Is Changing

Many North Carolina homeowners will be losing coverage on their homeowners insurance policy over the next few months. Most won’t bother to read the fine print in their renewals so they won’t even know what they lost. Hopefully, for those of you astute enough to follow this blog, this won’t be the case.

What has changed in NC regarding the homeowners insurance policy is that the coverage for backup of water or sewer, which is an add on endorsement that you can purchase, is going to have new limits on how much will be paid out in the event of a claim. Let me start by saying that this coverage is not included in your home insurance policy unless you add it by endorsement. Some people don’t need this endorsement at all, and others absolutely should not be without it. To learn more about the sewer backup endorsement and who needs to buy it, please read my blog about back of sewers and drains coverage.

If you have this endorsement on your policy, then in the past this protection had the same limit of coverage as your home itself. So, for instance if you have $200,000 coverage on your dwelling, then with this sewer back up endorsement, then you would have $200,000 coverage for this type of loss. For all renewals with an effective date of June 1 2010 or later, this changes. Now instead you must choose a limit of coverage. The available limits are $5000, $10,000, $15,000, and $25,000. Probably in most cases one of these limits will be high enough to pay off the loss but there is really no way to know before the claim happens. It’s also fair to note that the cost of this protection is going up on a per dollar basis. That’s because where you used to have the same limit of coverage as your dwelling for around $25 per year cost, now that same $25 will probably buy you between $5,000 and $10,000 of protection, depending on which company you are insured with.

I urge everyone to read the letter that will come with your next renewal if you have this endorsement. Every company will handle this change differently but by and large, most of them will move your protection down to the $5000 coverage level. This is fine if you are confident that this is enough coverage to handle any claims you may have. But if not, then you will need to be proactive and contact your agent and ask for a higher limit.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we work hard to help all of our clients become informed insurance consumers. Whether you are looking for auto insurance, home insurance, life insurance or business insurance, please feel free to contact us for help and advice. You can call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com.

Much of the source information for this article can be found at our blog website which is www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.