Garage Keepers Insurance for Used Car Dealers

Most used car dealers understand that they need a garage insurance policy for their business.  And some even understand that they need dealers open lot coverage for their inventory.  But there are some dealers out there who perform a hybrid function for their clients and we often find that these dealers have overlooked a garage coverage that leaves them wide open for an uncovered loss.  If you are a used car dealer who does some repair work, you really owe it to yourself to read this article, and then check your policy to make sure you are covered properly.

The hybrid dealer that I am referring to is one who not only works on his own cars, but who works on cars owned by others.  In this situation, the dealer is performing a double function from the insurance company’s perspective: a seller of cars and a repairer of cars.  And this creates the need for a coverage endorsement to the garage policy that is often unfamiliar to a used car dealer.

The coverage that you need to add to your dealers policy is called garage keepers insurance.  This coverage is designed to protect you for losses to your clients cars that are left in your care, custody or control.  Garage keepers insurance can be broken up into two  main coverage areas.  One is called garage keepers collision coverage and the other is called garage keepers comprehensive  coverage. 

The comprehensive coverage is for fire, theft, windstorm, flood and other loss types that could occur to your customers vehicles while you have them in your possession for repairs.  The collision coverage is for damages caused by collision to your clients cars while they are in your possession.

Within the broader category of garagekeepers insurance there is additional information you need to make a good decision about how much and which type to purchase.  I have written other blogs on those issues and you can read them by clicking on the links below.  There are also some video links if you prefer watching videos.

How much garage keepers insurance to buy – blog version

How much garage keepers insurance to buy  – video version

Garage keepers Insurance explained Part I blog

Garage Keepers Insurance explained Part II blog

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in helping used car dealers with their insurance needs.  We insure hundreds of used car dealers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia.  If you would like help with your dealers insurance, please visit us online at www.TheAutoDealersHelper.com or call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557.

Much of the information for this article was sourced from www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com

Contractors Workers Compensation Insurance – Protect Your Mod

Most contractors have at least a general knowledge of workers compensation insurance.  They know that they need it and they know it can cost a lot of money.  But only a few really understand the experience modification factor and what it could mean for their future construction company insurance policy costs.  This little primer will help you understand just how important it is to protect your mod and how to do it.

The experience modification factor of workers compensation policies, referred to as the experience mod or just mod for short, is the insurance industry’s way of assigning higher rates to businesses with poor loss experience and lower rates to those who have had more favorable loss experience.  Each business has its own unique experience modification factor and this factor is applied to the rates on their policy.  For example, if you have had a lot of losses, or perhaps a few large losses, you might find yourself with a mod of say, 1.35.  If this is the case, then your workers compensation insurance policy premium will be adjusted upward by 35% to reflect your bad experience.  Likewise, if your company hasn’t has a work comp loss for several years, your mod might drop as low as .80 and this would mean a 20% reduction in your overall workers compensation policy premium.

So how is this mod calculated?  Well, the first thing you need to know is that the mod is calculated based on past experience.  That means what happens today will take several years to come back and bite you.  Also, the experience period for the mod in North Carolina is 3 years, so once you get some losses in your mod calculation, they will stay there  for a while.  I want to leave a more detailed explanation of how the mod is calculated to a later blog, but for now, understand that it is not only the number of losses (called frequency) that plays a part, but also the amount paid out (called severity) that impacts the mod calculation.  And a little of both, frequency and severity can really run up your mod.

So what can you, as a business owner, do to protect your mod?  A lot of how your mod will affect you, both good or bad will be determined by which insurance company you choose for your workers compensation policy.  I say this, because, although you may be as careful as you can to avoid injuries among your workers, there is no substitute for an insurance company that is actively working for you to help you prevent claims and reduce the severity of existing claims.  So when evaluating which workers compensation policy to purchase, you should consider more than just the premium on the first policy.  Find out what that insurance company and that agent are going to do to keep your costs low over the long term.

Choose a workers compensation insurance company that will work with you to help you with both prevention and severity reduction.   Prevention can come in the form of safety inspections, and loss control techniques that the insurance company can share with you.  Reduction can come in the form of programs that help your injured workers get back to work more quickly.  Some of the best workers compensation insurance companies even have their own nurses and doctors.  Also, you want to purchase your workers comp coverage from a company that assigns case managers to each claim to stay on top of all the medical bills and the disability payments to keep the payout as small as possible.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in helping the owners of small contracting companies navigate the complex waters of insurance policy and insurance company selection.  We can help you find a pro-active insurance company that will help you reduce the number of work comp claims and keep the claims that happen from spiraling out of control.  Because contractors insurance is our specialty, we can help you with your insurance needs whether you need help with carpentry insurance, carpet cleaner insurance, electricians insurance, flooring insurance, HVAC insurance, grading and excavating insurance, insulation insurance, landscaping or lawn care insurance, masonry insurance, painters insurance, plumbers insurance, siding insurance or  even guttering insurance .  We have built special niche programs for many different types of contractors and we encourage you to call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at  www.TheContractorsHelper.com. 

The source information for this article was taken from other articles which can be found in their entirety at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

NC Auto Insurance – Your License Tag Is Your Reminder

It’s so easy to take a car off of your car insurance policy, just call your agent and tell them.  And when you have signed your title over to the buyer, it seems like you are really finished with the process.  But, a cautionary tale her can remind you that under no circumstances should you ever let the new buyer drive off with your tags still on that vehicle.  It could ruin you financially.

In NC when you buy a car from someone, even though they have signed the title over to you, the state doesn’t recognize that transaction until the buyer registers the car.  And the one thing that will force the new buyer to do this is if he or she doesn’t have any tags to put on the car.  Here’s a story that drives this point home.

Someone I know, who was not one of our clients,  sold one of his vehicle, a pickup  truck,  to a friend.  He then called his agent and asked them to take the vehicle off of his policy.  The buyer of the car drove off with his license plate on the vehicle and then they failed to go to the DMV to register the car in their name and get their own tags.  They also failed to add this truck to their personal auto insurance policy.  A few weeks later, they loaned the truck back to my friend as he had to pick up a large item from the store.  On the way to the store, my friend had a terrible accident which resulted in nearly $100,000 of damages.  In this case, he is driving a car, registered in his name, without insurance.  But in his mind, he had sold it and he shouldn’t need insurance.  As you can imagine, he was held accountable for all of the damages from this accident.

This is an odd story but the same result could have happened if the new buyer’s were driving and had an accident.  The real key take away knowledge from this story is that you should never, ever let someone drive away with your tags on your vehicle.  It leaves you exposed to losses you cannot control and could ruin you financially.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we work hard to make sure that all of our clients are informed insurance consumers.  If we can help you with your auto insurance, your home insurance, or even your business or life insurance, please call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com.

The source data for this blog was pulled from information which can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Garagekeepers Insurance – How Much Is Enough?

Automotive repair shops and used car dealers both need a garage insurance policy.  Included in this policy is a coverage call garagekeepers insurance.  In the case of automotive repair shop insurance or body repair insurance, this is protection to cover loss and damages to customers’ cars left with the repair shop.  In the case of the auto dealer insurance, this coverage is often referred to as dealers open lot coverage and provides comprehensive and collision protection for the inventory owned by the used car dealer.  But how do you as an auto repair shop or body shop owner know how much garage keepers insurance to buy?

In this article I want to stay focused on the repair shop with true garagekeepers insurance and I will leave the dealers open lot question for another blog.  Repair shops and body shops are all different in terms of how they deal with customers’ vehicles left with them for repair.  Some never need to test drive the cars and some need to do extensive driving.  Others are able to keep all vehicles inside their building at night while others may even have to park client cars out on the street.  Each situation presents different dangers and exposures to the repair shop owner.

Garagekeepers insurance can be broken down into two coverage elements.  One is collision coverage and the other is comprehensive.  The collision coverage will pay for losses caused to client vehicles that are damaged by a collision.  This happens most often when the car is being test driven.  The comprehensive coverage provides protection against, fire, hail, water damage and a host of other losses that can happen to your clients’ cars while they are in your care.  So how do you decide how much coverage to buy?

Let’s take collision first.  I suggest that you carefully try and understand the worst case scenario for a collision loss to one of your client’s vehicles.  Assume that your employee has a total loss with the most valuable car that you would ever work on.  That should put you in the ball park of how much coverage you should purchase.

With comprehensive coverage on your garagekeepers coverage, you need to try and imagine the worst case scenario for this type of loss to your clients’ cars.  If you keep them inside at night, what would it cost to replace the cars if you had a total fire loss overnight and every customer car in your garage was totaled?  If you keep them outside, what amount of damages would be caused by a severe hailstorm or a flood if that is possible in your location?  Don’t forget to consider vandalism in your worst case scenarios as well.

Once you have done this, you will need to take the largest of the two numbers that you arrived at and purchase that amount of garagekeepers coverage.  The reason is that most insurance companies won’t let you purchase one amount of coverage for collision and another for comprehensive.  There are a few companies that will allow this but they are few and far in between.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in helping owners of auto repair and auto body shops with their insurance needs.  We work hard to help all of our clients become informed insurance consumers so that they can make the best decisions when it comes to insuring their businesses.  If we can help you with your garage insurance, please call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at our auto repair and body shop insurance help site.

The source information for this article was pulled from an article which can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Teen Driver Insurance – Unraveling The Mysteries of The NC Teen Driver Insurance Rates

Most everyone with children is vaguely aware of it, when their teenagers get licensed, they are going to have to pay a lot more for their NC auto insurance policy.  But just how much more and for how long remains a bit of a mystery for a lot of parents.  While the ins and outs of getting the best teen driver insurance rates are too much to explore in this blog, I do want to help the reader understand exactly how the inexperienced operator surcharges apply to NC auto insurance policies.  Read on to lift the veil of mystery on this issue.

We all know that young drivers have more accidents because they are just not experienced drivers.  And as they gain experience, they become better drivers and less likely to be involved in an accident.  Also, those teen drivers who have their own cars are also several times more likely to be involved in an accident with that vehicle.  These two realities can go a long way toward explaining the rating system in NC for teen drivers.

The extra money that you will pay on your auto insurance policy for your teen driver is called the inexperienced operator surcharge.  This surcharge has 6 categories and how much extra you will pay is determined by the category that your child falls into. 

The first category asks the question of whether or not your child is a primary operator or an occasional operator of a vehicle.  Primary operator simply means that your child is furnished a car of their own to drive.  You don’t really have a choice about this as the insurance company will simply take the number of cars on your policy and the number of drivers on your policy and apply a driver to each car.  If you have 3 cars and 3 drivers, well then you teen is going to listed as a primary operator.  The surcharge for primary operators is about twice that of an occasional operator.

The second category that affects the amount of surcharge on your policy for your teen driver asks the question of how long your child has been licensed.  The inexperienced operator surcharges last for 3 years and there are 3 categories, one for each year of driving experience.  The NC auto insurance policy rules allow the insurance company to leave your child in their current experience level tier until the policy comes up for renewal.  This generally has the effect of forcing you to pay for the surcharges longer than you need to for each tier.  There is a way around this and it can save you quite a bit of money.  To learn that trick read my blog about The IEO rate loophole.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we want all of our clients to be informed insurance buyers.  We specialize in helping families with teen drivers and as such,  we have created several tools to help families deal with the safety and insurance issues associated with teen drivers.  Visit our teen driver help page or call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 for more help with your young drivers.

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

Auto Insurance for Seniors – Find a Senior Friendly Auto Insurance Company You Like and Stay There

With all the commercials that we are barraged with each day telling us how we can save money on our car insurance, there is one group of people that should run as fast as they can from these ads.   That is the senior citizens in our society.  Insurance companies are out to make a profit and they have found that above a certain age, their profit margins run razor thin to nonexistent.  Because of this, if you are a senior citizens, you should know the rules that the insurance companies are playing under and how they can affect you.

Insurance companies are not really allowed to openly discriminate against the elderly when selling a North Carolina auto insurance policy.   But they have ways of making sure that they either drive these customers off, or remove the wonderful discounts that they offer to their more profitable age groups.  With that in mind, it is wise for anyone approaching age 72, to find an insurance company that they like and are happy with and stay there.   There are several insurance companies who have made it their niche market to target the elderly and they will offer senior discounts to senior citizens up to a certain age group.  Typically, these companies will also stay true to their elderly clients even as they age into age brackets that would scare the average car insurance company.  Also, it is easier to get a company to renew your policy  than it is to get one to write you as a new client so staying put with an insurance company  that you like once you approach your seventies is a good plan.

Recently we had a client in his early seventies who wanted to cut his auto insurance costs.   He responded to an ad and eventually changed his policy to the new company.  Unfortunately for him, the company sold him a teaser rate and on the first renewal his rates increased dramatically.  He contacted us to see if we could take him back but the company that he was with, although very friendly to senior drivers, has different rules for new policies than they do for renewals.   Therefore his rate with the same company he had before was now also increased.  We begged him not to switch, knowing that this scenario would surely happen and of course it did.  The other collateral damage for this client was his homeowners insurance policy.  When he switched his auto insurance, he lost his multi policy discount on the home insurance so that policy went up in price as well.  The other insurance company that wrote his auto insurance didn’t insure homes so he couldn’t put those together again to receive the discounts he deserves since he is buying both types of policies.

If you are approaching your seventies and you are not sure if your auto insurance company is a senior friendly type company, please give us a call, toll free at 877-687-7557 and we will do our best to help you understand what you are dealing with.   The main message here is that shopping around for the best rates on car insurance is a dangerous bargain for people approaching their seventies.  Find an insurance company that you like and trust, and plan to stay there for the duration.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we want all of our clients to be informed insurance consumers.  We work hard to make sure that our clients have the protection that they need at the best possible prices for their home insurance, auto insurance, life insurance and their business insurance.  If we can help you with any of your insurance needs, please visit us online at www.ClinardInsurance.com or call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557.

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

If You Are A Landlord You Need To Make This Change To Your Home Insurance Policy

It’s amazing just how many people in this world are landlords of some type.  And most of them are not really in the business of being landlords, they just happened on to it through inheritance, divorce or maybe even a chance investment.  But very few occasional landlords have taken the time to cover a hidden liability exposure that comes along with the territory.  And the saddest part of all is that the fix is so easy and affordable.

Part of the reason that the small time landlord leaves off this protection is that adding liability coverage for rental dwellings is deceptively easy.  All you need to do is call you agent and tell them to add the liability coverage for your rental property to your home insurance policy.  And this fix takes care of 95% of the risk.  But the other 5% could ruin you.

What needs to be done is to add the personal injury endorsement to your homeowners policy.  Many agents will forget this tidbit of knowledge, but the personal injury endorsement adds protection for some intentional or even unintentional acts that can get a landlord in trouble.  The most likely of these is wrongful eviction, wrongful entry into or the invasion of the right of private occupancy of a room or dwelling occupied by a lessor.  The standard homeowners policy does not include coverage for wrongful eviction and invasion of privacy and even if you extend the liability coverage of your homeowners policy to the location of your rental property, without this endorsement, you won’t have protection for these acts.

The good news is that you can add the personal injury endorsement to your policy by simply calling your agent.  And the cost of this protection is rarely more than $25 per year in North Carolina.  So if you are a landlord, by all means, call your agent and take care of this coverage gap today.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we work hard to help all of our clients become informed insurance consumers.  If we can help you with your home insurance or your auto insurance, or if you need help with life insurance or business insurance, please call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at www.ClinardInsurance.com.

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

Construction Insurance in NC – small contractors, don’t forget your work comp insurance

I hear it so often with artisan contractors, they don’t think they need workers compensation insurance because they have too few employees or the general contractor that they work under provides that coverage.  While these are reasons that allow them to legally avoid buying a policy, in both cases they leave the artisan contractor’s destiny in the hands of others and may ultimately cost the small contractor his or her business.  Here’s the real scoop on workers compensation insurance in North Carolina for small contractors.

It doesn’t matter which area you work in, whether you are hunting for painter insurance, plumbing insurance, lawn care insurance, carpenter insurance, landscaping insurance, grading insurance or even insulation or flooring insurance, you really will do better to always purchase a work comp policy for your small contractor business.  Let’s take a look at the three reasons people don’t purchase workers comp insurance for their small business.

Reason #1  -  Less than 3 employees.  While it is true that in North Carolina, if you have less than 3 employees, then the state will not require you to purchase a workers compensation insurance policy, what is seldom said in  the next sentence is that whether or not you buy insurance, you are still on the hook for the claims.  The workers compensation insurance policy was created as a compromise.  Workers gave up their rights to sue their employers in most cases and the trade off for them was that employers agreed to pay the benefits associated with injuries and sicknesses on the job according to the statutory payouts required by each state.  So, as the employer, you will have to pay for your employees job related injuries, sicknesses and time out of work in accordance with the NC workers compensation statutes.  If they are permanently disabled or even out of work for several months, these costs could run into the tens of thousands and possibly close your business.  Many small contractors are choosing not to buy workers compensation insurance based on their number of employees and this could have a devastating effect on their business.

Reason #2  – It costs too much.   Let’s face it, workers comp insurance can be expensive.  But if you have an agent that specializes in your type of business, then you will have a much better chance of getting your policy set up in a way that saves you the most money while still protecting you from financial ruin.  And really while the short term costs may seem high what is your entire business worth?

Reason #3  – The general contractor covers it.  While for some small contractors, this may be true, there are several reasons why this is a poor choice.  First of all, if the general contractor were to go out of business, or let their insurance cancel through some error, then you are back on the hook and if the claim is large enough, then there goes your company.  Also, if you do work not associated with that contractor then you are back to going bare.  Secondly,  most general contractors add a large premium to the rate that they are charged to carry you on their policy so you will probably find you are paying more than you should to be covered this way.

In almost every case, it is a better choice for small, artisan construction companies to purchase their own workers compensation insurance policy directly.  The risks associated with going bare, or riding on the general contractor’s coat tails are just too high.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in helping small artisan contractors of all types with their insurance needs.  We have special insurance programs designed for carpenters, carpet cleaners, concrete and masonry construction, electricians, flooring installation companies, grading and excavating contractors, guttering and siding installation companies, HVAC companies, landscapers and lawn maintenance companies, painters and plumbers.  We work hard to help all of our clients become informed insurance buyers.  If we can help you with your business insurance needs, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at www.TheContractorsHelper.com.

The source information for this blog article was pulled from information which can be found on line at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com

Electrical Contractors – Don’t forget DOC coverage on your electrician insurance for your trucks

Most electricians did the basic set up work on their electrical contractors’ insurance years ago and few ever revisit the underlying structure of their insurance plan.  As a result, there are electrical contractors out there, running around with a huge hole in their insurance policy protection.  I call it the DOC trap and you can figure out if you are vulnerable to this problem by asking yourself a few easy questions.

First of all, to understand this problem, you have to understand that your electrician insurance policies cover the named insured on the policy.  In many cases that is the name of your corporation or LLC, and if your personal name is not on your business auto insurance policy, then you can’t expect personal protection from that policy.

Here’s the problem.  Let’s say you are at a party with a friend, who has had too much to drink.  You kindly offer to drive him home but on the way home, you are involved in an accident that is your fault.  For this example, let’s say the total damages, including injuries are $250,000.  That’s not hard to do with medical costs the way they are these days.   Now, if you have a personal auto policy in your name, then you will be protected for your liability in this accident as long as you have liability limits high enough to cover the losses.  But suppose you don’t have a personal auto insurance policy because you just drive your company truck all the time.  If your electrician auto insurance policy has your corporation as a named insured, then the basic policy will not give you any protection for this accident.

So what is the solution?  It’s simple really; you should add DOC coverage to your commercial auto policy. DOC stands for drives other car coverage and this endorsement will add your name to the policy making you a named insured for this excess coverage.  This endorsement usually costs less than $200 per year per person and is used to plug a dangerous hole in protection.

So to review, you should consider DOC coverage if the following statements are true.

1. Your electrician insurance policy on your trucks is in a business name and,
2. You don’t have a personal auto policy in your name

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in helping electrical contractors with their insurance needs.  We want all of our clients to be informed insurance consumers so that they can make the right decisions for themselves and for their electrician business.  If we can help you with your electrician workers compensation insurance, your electrician liability insurance, or any of your other electrical contractor insurance needs, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit  us online at our electrical contractors insurance helper page.

The information in this article was drawn from an article which can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com

Plumbers Here’s The Way To Increase Your Business Strategically

Every plumber worth his salt knows that the busiest repair days out there are the holidays.  Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and the 4^th of July.  Too many people sharing a house and flushing the same toilet over and over again can stress household plumbing systems to the breaking point.  But only the savviest plumbers out there understand that this is a chance to increase their business for the rest of the year.  Here’s a tip on how to turn these overworked holidays into big bucks for you all year around.

Let’s face it, most homeowners don’t really have a go to plumber until they have a plumbing emergency.  Then they call a friend or go looking.  If the plumber that they find does a good job for them, well they have your card and your number and they never need to hunt down a plumber again.  They have you.  But if you miss that opportunity, then you will never get a shot at their business.  So how do you use that information and the insider knowledge you have about the busiest plumbing days of the year to your advantage?  Here’s how.

First of all, understand that very few people look in the yellow pages any more.  They just go to google.  Now you can work hard all year around to build up your ranking on google but there are two problems with that approach.  First of all, search engine optimization isn’t geographically specific.  Second of all, it is hard and takes a long time.  But there is a way to get to the top of the search engine world immediately.  That is called pay per click advertising.  And with your knowledge of just when people will need you, you can bid high on just those days.   You can set up your pay per click, called ppc, account so that you bid very high only on the days that people will be looking and desperate.  You can also limit who will see your ad to the geographic territory in which you are willing to operate on the holiday. This will put you at the top of the list for the search terms you think are most likely to be used, such as: plumber Raleigh, N.C., or other terms you deem to be most likely to be searched.  Also, always put your phone number in the ppc ad.  Some people will click through to your site but if you have an ad that tells them you are available on holidays and just call this number, then you can save the click through cost of the ad because some percentage of searchers will just pick up the phone and call you.

Now you are buying the business here just a bit, but you will be able to charge them holiday rates.   Let’s face it if you have 25 people in your house and a plumbing leak that is shutting down the party, you don’t care what the plumber charges, you need a solution and fast.  Also, if you handle this correctly, you will have made a client for life.  And they will have other plumbing repair needs in the future.

Now, last of all, if you have to pay your employees time and a half, or double time to work on holidays, then you need to know one last trick to save you money.  Your NC plumbers workers compensation insurance policy does not require you to include the extra holiday pay in the payroll that you declare at audit.  So keep good records on your overtime and holiday pay so you don’t pay to much for your workers compensation or your plumbers liability insurance policies, both of which are rated based on payroll.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we work hard to help all of our clients become informed insurance consumers.  We also want all of our commercial insurance clients to be successful businesses.  We specialize in the insurance needs of plumbing contractors and work hard to help all of our plumbing company clients become successful.  If we can help you with your plumbing insurance needs, please feel free to call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at the plumbing insurance headquarters.

The source information for this article was pulled from information which can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.