December 27, 2023
Insurance for Small Commercial Garages in New Hampshire
Insurance is essential for a small auto-repair, auto-mechanic shop in Bow, New Hampshire. It may seem expensive, and insurance is often an area in which businesses try to cut costs, but to do so is not always the best thing.
Picture the scenario: you own a full-service garage in Concord and a storm leaves your property with extensive damages that will take weeks to repair. While the work is being done, you cannot operate and must temporarily close. With no or too little insurance, that one storm could ruin you: you have to find the money to pay for the repairs, you will likely be sued for damages to your customer’s property, you will have no income for the duration…the financial toll goes on.
At your Hooksett, NH, auto-body shop, one of the workers fails to clean up a gas spill correctly and overnight, a fire breaks out. By morning your shop is unusable. It will take months to put things right. With no N.H. commercial insurance coverage, your temporary closure could become permanent and lead to enormous financial hardship.
Do I need special insurance for my NH garage?
In many ways, a commercial garage in New Hampshire is the same as any business in NH. There are legal requirements, practical requirements, and common-sense financial requirements.
Insurance is one necessity that falls into all three areas: legal, practical, and financial. And, yes, appropriate insurance is a legal requirement for most New Hampshire businesses.
What insurance do you need for your commercial garage in Concord? Your auto-body repair shop in Hooksett? Your mechanic shop in Bow?
Like all small NH businesses, you will need the following insurance policies:
General liability insurance
Workers comp insurance
Umbrella policy insurance
For your commercial garage in Hooksett, your auto-body repair shop in Bow, and your mechanic shop in Concord, you should also have the following at a minimum:
Garage Liability insurance
These two policies, Garage Keepers Insurance and Garage Liability Insurance sound the same, but their coverage is distinctly different and equally important.
Is it Garage Keepers Insurance or Garage Liability Insurance?
How does Garage Keepers Insurance and Garage Liability Insurance work? You have a mechanic shop in Bow, NH. One of your employees has been working on a car in the shop. The work is done; it’s time to move the vehicle out of the shop. As the mechanic drives through the doors, they don’t know that a delivery truck is driving around the corner of the building in their blind spot. The mechanic collides with the truck. Damage is done to both vehicles. Your business is liable for the damage done to your customer’s car, which was in your care at the time of the accident, and you are likely liable for the damage done to the delivery truck. For the former, your garage keepers insurance has you covered. For the latter, your garage liability insurance has you covered.
Garage keepers insurance focuses on customers’ vehicles in your care.
Garage liability insurance focuses on general liability, including bodily injury caused by your business's normal operations.
At Allied Insurance Agency, the best insurance agency in Bow, NH, we have specialized in insurance for commercial garages for decades. We know what insurance, small and large, auto shops need and understand the particular needs of the auto business in the Bow, Hooksett, and Concord areas. At Allied, we know that insurance is never a one-size-fits-all deal and that navigating through the terminology to get exactly what you need is complicated. Your business is to keep vehicles on the road. Our business is to insure your business.
Contact Allied Insurance today for the best commercial garage keepers and garage liability insurance advice in the Bow, Concord, and Hooksett areas.
