Moon Insurance Managers, Inc. · TDI license #5595
If customers hand you their keys, ordinary commercial auto is not the whole answer. Garage insurance is an insurance term for businesses that sell, repair, service, tow, park, or store vehicles. It is not one automatic bundle, and it is not simply insurance on the building called a garage.
The right conversation starts with three questions:
Tell us what happens to a vehicle from arrival through return. We can help organize the customer-auto, business-auto, inventory, liability, and property questions before a submission is prepared.
Before anything else
This is the commercial auto-business page. A detached residential garage is normally addressed under the “other structures” portion of a homeowners insurance policy.
Tell the homeowners agent if the garage is used for a business. Business use can change which policy should answer, and it is the sentence most likely to be left out of the conversation.
Source: TDI — how home insurance covers structures on your property. Verified .
Follow the vehicle
The cleanest way to understand a garage program is to follow the vehicle.
One business can have every one of these exposures. Their sharing an address does not make them the same coverage.
Source: NAIC — property/casualty product coding matrix. Verified .
One letter apart
The names are close enough to cause trouble.
A visitor slipping in the waiting room and a customer’s car damaged while it is overnight in the lot are different claims. A shop-owned pickup driven for parts is a third question. The policy forms and limits should show which answer belongs to each.
Read the basis
Garagekeepers can be written on different bases.
None of those labels answers every coverage question by itself. The declarations, coverage form, endorsements, and facts of the loss control. “Direct” is not a single setting either — a direct basis can be written more than one way, so the proposal and the issued form have to identify the exact basis rather than the word alone.
Have the requested basis ready if a lease or customer contract specifies one. It is the detail most likely to be quoted differently from the way the contract asked for it.
Source: TDI — approved certificate of garage insurance. Verified .
Class by class
“We work with cars” is only the first line of the description.
The conversation changes with the work performed, maximum number and value of customer vehicles, overnight storage, test drives, pickup and delivery, loaners, and who may drive. Mechanical repair, body work, detailing, glass, tires, quick lube, inspection, restoration, and heavy-vehicle work can produce different underwriting answers.
Dealers need to separate customer autos in a service department from vehicles the dealership owns for sale. Average and peak inventory, dealer plates, demonstrators, test drives, false-pretense or title-related exposures, and hail concentration can all require separate questions. A Texas dealer surety bond is also a different instrument from garage liability or garagekeepers.
Follow the customer vehicle through three stages:
The first is a commercial-auto question. The second is commonly described as on-hook or cargo coverage. The third is a storage-location or garagekeepers question, depending on the form. Texas licensing requirements vary by towing category and by vehicle-storage operation, so there is no single minimum to quote for every business.
Custody, key control, drivers, access, security, overnight storage, maximum vehicle values, and the customer contract matter. A surface lot, attended garage, valet operation, and impound facility should not be submitted as if they were the same business.
Sources: TDLR — apply for a tow company license; TDLR — apply for a vehicle storage facility company license; TxDMV — independent GDN licensing. Verified .
Regulatory minimums are floors for specified licensed operations. They are not advice about limits appropriate to the vehicles actually in a business’s care.
Do not assume
Do not assume garagekeepers pays to replace a defective part or redo faulty work. The cost to redo the work, the part itself, and any resulting injury or damage can present different questions. The answer depends on the facts and the issued policies.
The same discipline applies to waste oil, tanks, pollution, flood, hail, employee-owned tools, or dealer-specific errors. Name the exposure before assuming where it belongs.
Employees are another separate line. A customer vehicle and the technician working on it do not create the same coverage question; see workers’ compensation insurance for the employee-injury side.
Have these ready
Start with a short description of the business. For the licensed-agent conversation, it helps to know:
The public form only starts the conversation. Do not send driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, payment information, full motor-vehicle records, or detailed claim documents through it. If we need documents, call (281) 484-8320 so staff can provide an approved transfer method.
No. Garage-operations liability concerns covered injury or property damage arising from operating the business. Garagekeepers concerns covered damage to a customer’s auto left for service, repair, parking, or storage. The issued forms decide the exact boundary.
Legal-liability coverage generally depends on the business being legally responsible for the covered vehicle damage. Direct-primary coverage can apply without first establishing legal fault, subject to the policy. The proposal and form must identify the exact direct basis.
Do not assume it does. Redoing the work, replacing the part, and responding to resulting injury or damage can present different coverage questions, so the actual forms and facts need review.
Customer vehicles and vehicles the dealer owns for sale are different exposures. Dealer inventory ordinarily needs its own physical-damage treatment.
There is no single insurance rule for every auto business. Licensed towing and vehicle-storage operations have specific Texas requirements, while leases, customer contracts, lenders, and auctions can impose others. Check the operation, license, and contract rather than relying on a universal answer. This is general insurance information, not legal or regulatory advice.
No. That is normally an “other structures” question under homeowners insurance. If the garage is used for business, tell the agent, because the business use can change the answer.
Separate the tow truck’s road liability, the customer vehicle while it is attached to or carried by the truck, and the vehicle after it reaches storage. One business can need all three answers.
No obligation
Tell us what the business does, whose vehicles it handles, how many can be in its care at once, and what the lease, license, or customer contract asks for. That is enough to start the right conversation without putting sensitive underwriting details into a public form.
The phone is fastest: (281) 484-8320, or use the form below. The Houston office is on the southeast side.
Already a Moon customer who needs evidence of existing coverage? Use the certificate of insurance request. A certificate reflects the policy; it does not create or change coverage.
Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 5:00; Friday, 9:00 to 4:00. 360 FM 1959, Houston, TX 77034. Policies written statewide — you do not have to be local.
Moon Insurance Managers, Inc. — 360 FM 1959, Houston, TX 77034 — (281) 484-8320