What is Garage Keepers and Why You Need It
Let’s talk about insurance coverage that applies specifically to the work truck and trailer industry, Garage Keepers. Do you have Garage Keepers? If you are in the work truck or the trailer industry and you have other people’s trailers on your premises, you’re going to have a coverage called Garage Keepers.
If you don’t have it, I highly encourage that you investigate and obtain Garage Keepers coverage.
What is Garage Keepers? Garage Keepers coverage for vehicles that are in your care, custody, or control. The keyword being ‘or’. It’s not care, custody and control. It’s care, custody, or control. Or is a hugely important word and it’s a word that helps you as an insured.
Legal Liability
There are a couple of different ways that you can buy Garage Keepers. The first is called legal liability. Legal liability is typically the least expensive of the options that you can choose from. It means, “We will pay for those claims of which you become legally liable.”
If you have somebody else’s vehicle that is in your care, custody, or control, and it’s an act of God, it’s a weather event, its hail, wind, etc, you are simply not legally liable for those types of events. That means, the insurance responsibility is going to fall back on your customer. It’s going to fall back on the dealer. It’s going to fall back on whoever provided the truck or trailer to you and your insurance is not going to respond in those situations. If you have legal liability, you should have it in your contract where you’re saying, “Hey, look, we’re not responsible for this. You’re responsible for this.”
Direct Primary
In some cases, the opposite may be true. It could be in your contract that you are required to be responsible. If this is the case, you need Garage Keepers on what we call a direct primary basis. Direct primary means that your insurance is going to pay regardless of fault. If those vehicles are in your care, custody, or control, and that same hailstorm rolls through, and you have direct primary, then your insurance is going to be the insurance that is going to respond.
Which Garage Keeper coverage you get is up to you. You may want legal liability because it costs less and the coverage is more restrictive. If your contracts state that you don’t need coverage for weather events, etc, then go for legal liability. But if your contracts state that you have to cover your clients’ vehicles in the event of a weather event and such, then you will want to look at closely and getting direct primary.
As always, if you need help, if you want to understand how these coverages work and would like somebody to advise you on which coverage is right for your business, please reach out to us. Click on the button below and reach out to us. I would love to hear from you soon. Let’s talk.