The paint booth decides your property rate. The cars in it decide everything else.
We insure auto body and collision repair shops: garagekeepers for the customer and insurer-referred cars in your care, the spray booth on the property policy, and the paint work that comes back as a claim months later.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.
Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.
What body shop businesses actually need.
Garagekeepers
Customer vehicles in your care, custody and control. Every repair shop and dealership has the exposure and most standard policies exclude it.
Without it — Customer and insurer-referred vehicles in your care, often for weeks while parts arrive. The per-location limit has to match a full shop and lot, not a slow Tuesday.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — Overspray on vehicles and buildings you were not working on, customers in the office, and completed operations on the repairs you release.
Commercial property
Buildings and contents, valued at what it costs to rebuild today rather than what you paid.
Without it — The building, the downdraft booth, the frame machine and the paint mixing room. The booth and solvent storage drive the fire rate.
Workers compensation
Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.
Without it — Solvent exposure, grinding, lifting panels and cutting. Body shop class rates sit above general auto repair in most states.
Contractors pollution liability
Bodily injury, property damage and clean-up caused by a pollutant your work released: chemical drift, run-off, fuel spills. The standard general liability form excludes all of it.
Without it — Paint waste, solvents and the booth filters. General liability carries a pollution exclusion that reaches all of them.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Tow-ins you move yourself, the parts runner and road tests after a repair. An employee driving a customer car is an auto exposure, and general liability excludes autos.
Business income
Replaces the profit and pays the ongoing bills while a covered loss keeps you closed. It is the part of a fire claim that is not the building.
Without it — A booth fire stops the paint side completely, and the insurer referral programs do not wait for you to reopen.
Equipment breakdown & spoilage
Covers the walk-in, the compressor and the line when they fail from the inside. A mechanical or electrical breakdown is excluded by property policies, and the stock that thawed goes with it.
Without it — Booth burners, compressors and the frame machine. Mechanical breakdown is excluded from property.
The claims we actually see.
Ordered by how often we see them, not by how dramatic they are. Each one names the coverage that answers it — and the policy people wrongly assume already does.
Most common
A customer car is damaged in the shop, by a fire, a fall off a lift or a tech moving it
Covered by Garagekeepers, on a direct primary form if fault is unclear
General liability excludes property in your care, custody or control, so a customer car in the bay is not a general liability claim at all.
Common
Overspray lands on cars in the lot or on the building next door
Covered by General liability, for vehicles and property NOT in your care
The same overspray on a car you were repairing is a garagekeepers question, and on a car parked by a neighbor it is general liability. Shops assume one policy answers both.
Less common, severe
A booth or solvent fire closes the shop
Covered by Property and business income, plus garagekeepers for the cars inside
Property rebuilds the shop and pays nothing toward the twelve customer cars that burned with it. That is garagekeepers, and the limit per location has to be big enough for a full shop.
Rare, catastrophic
A structural repair fails and the car is in a crash later
Covered by Completed operations under general or garage liability
Completed operations answers for the injuries and the other car. Redoing your own faulty work is excluded on almost every form.
Joe Gorman
Co-Founder | President of Commercial Lines
Has placed hundreds of auto service businesses: repair shops, mobile mechanics, heavy truck garages and the roadside operators most carriers will not look at. He knows which markets still take a garage risk and what garagekeepers limit a full lot actually needs. A mobile operation described the wrong way gets declined on sight, so he describes it the right way.
What the insurance company will ask about your body shop business
We read the applications the markets use for businesses in this field and pulled out what they actually ask. Have these answers ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week, because nobody has to come back to you for the missing piece.
About the business
- What type of repair and service work do you do?
- How long have you been in business?
- What is your business structure (sole owner, partnership, corporation, etc.)?
- What states do you operate in?
- How much of your work is mobile repairs versus repairs done at your location?
How you operate
- What percentage of your work involves different types of vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, RVs, etc.)?
- Do you lease or rent vehicles to customers?
- Do you have any other business operations besides repair and service?
- Do you test drive vehicles over 26,000 pounds off-site?
- Do you park customer vehicles on public streets?
Safety and controls
- Are your work areas separated from where customers wait?
- Do you do spray painting, and if so, is it in a separate ventilated room?
- How do you store paints, solvents, and fiberglass resins?
- Do you have fire extinguishers on site, and are they serviced and charged?
- Do you get certificates of insurance from all subcontractors?
Your history
- What was your gross revenue from tire sales, installation, and repair in the last year?
- Have you had any insurance claims or losses in the past five years?
- Have you ever been canceled or refused coverage by an insurance company?
- Who is your current or most recent insurance company?
Money and people
- How many employees do you have?
- Do any of your drivers have commercial driver's licenses?
- Do you have any vehicles with dealer or repair plates?
Have these ready
- Your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs
- A list of all owners, employees, and drivers with their driver's license numbers, birthdates, and any traffic violations or accidents
- Your dealer license (if you have one) and list of which states issued it
- Proof of insurance from all subcontractors you work with
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our body shop clients ask us.
Does my general liability cover a customer’s car while it is in my shop?
No. The standard general liability form excludes damage to personal property in your care, custody or control, and a car handed to you for repair is exactly that. It also excludes damage arising from any auto operated by or loaned to you. Garagekeepers is the coverage written for the customer’s car. Without it, a shop fire that destroys ten repair orders is paid from the business.
Legal liability or direct primary garagekeepers for a body shop?
Direct primary, for most collision shops. Legal liability pays only when you were negligent, so a fire with no proven cause, a break-in or a hailstorm over the lot may not be covered at all. Direct primary pays regardless of fault and does not wait for the customer’s own insurer. Body shops also hold cars longer than any other garage, often weeks while parts arrive, which makes a no-fault loss more likely to land on a car in your care.
Who pays when my paint work fails a few months later?
Usually you, for the paint itself. General and garage liability forms exclude the cost of redoing your own faulty work. What they do cover is the consequence: if a bad structural repair leads to a crash, injuries and damage to other property are a completed operations claim. Peeling clear coat is a warranty cost; a failed weld that causes an accident is an insurance claim.
Do insurer referral programs require specific coverage?
Direct repair programs commonly set minimum garagekeepers and liability limits and ask for a certificate naming them, and the terms differ by program. Send us the program agreement itself rather than a summary, because the wording is what the program checks. A shop that cannot evidence the limit can be dropped from the referral list, which costs more than the premium difference.
What makes a body shop more expensive to insure than a repair shop?
Paint. A spray booth, mixing room and solvent storage raise the fire exposure that drives the property rate, the workers comp class is usually rated higher than mechanical repair, and the garagekeepers limit has to cover cars that sit for weeks rather than hours. Underwriters ask about the booth’s fire suppression, how solvents are stored and how many cars are on the lot overnight. A shop with a clean booth inspection and a fenced, lit lot is a better submission.
What does a body shop insurance application ask for?
The applications for body shop businesses ask about 4 things above all: what type of repair and service work do you do; what percentage of your work involves different types of vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, rvs, etc.); are your work areas separated from where customers wait; what was your gross revenue from tire sales, installation, and repair in the last year. Have your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs and a list of all owners, employees, and drivers with their driver's license numbers, birthdates, and any traffic violations or accidents ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.
Handed a lease, a vendor packet or a client contract with insurance requirements? Paste it into the COI Requirements Decoder to see what each one means for your business, or read what the requirements mean.