Auto Dealer Insurance
Cover your business with insurance tailored to the risks specific to auto dealerships. Let Higginbotham help you drive your success.
Cover your business with insurance tailored to the risks specific to auto dealerships. Let Higginbotham help you drive your success.
If you own a car dealership, we know what drives you: unique business insurance solutions. Whether you need garage liability insurance, open lot insurance or employment practices liability, we help you prevent and minimize loss—not just cover it.
By helping you avoid claims and bypass triggering your insurance coverage, our team helps to protect your auto dealership from associated costs and higher insurance rates.
At Higginbotham, our car dealer insurance solutions are tailored to the needs of each dealership we serve.
Hear from Philip Vela at Higginbotham about how our team of experienced brokers has deep knowledge of the automotive industry and is able to provide customized auto dealer insurance solutions that meet the market’s unique needs and challenges. Philip shares how Higginbotham’s personalized service, including regular check-ins, claims support and risk management advice, helps auto dealerships to make informed decisions and stay protected from unexpected events.
At Higginbotham, our experience comes from serving over 400 franchised auto dealers throughout the U.S.
We understand that protecting your business from costly claims and higher insurance rates goes beyond just having an insurance policy. It means avoiding claims so your insurance coverage never gets triggered.
Not only can we help you secure the best possible coverage with an insurance carrier that offers policies specifically crafted for car dealerships, we can also help control your losses by providing risk management programs refined over years of implementation. We identify loss trends from our broad portfolio of dealerships and use those insights to help mitigate your risks.
Our commitment to your success extends well beyond placing your auto dealer insurance coverage on day one. Through our Day Two Services®, we provide year-round value by supporting your risk management efforts. We’re always there, ready to help you turn challenges into opportunities.
Our custom programs combine education, training, compliance, audits and quarterly reviews to put you in control of your losses. In the event of a claim, we assist you in resolving it and also analyze patterns to help prevent future claims.
Navigating the complexities of auto dealer insurance to secure the most effective coverage for your business can be a daunting task. But, with Higginbotham in the passenger seat, you don’t have to handle it alone. With our strong relationships with insurance providers and our deep understanding of the auto dealership industry, we’ll help you find the insurance coverage that’s tailored to your business’s needs.
The coverages that make sense for your auto dealer insurance coverage depend on your unique risk exposure, location and operational scope.
Garage liability insurance coverage is designed to help with the cost of claims and lawsuits arising from bodily injury or property damage suffered by a third party. Auto dealerships have traditionally been targeted by personal injury law firms due to their perceived deep pockets. That’s why we offer coverage to help protect you in the event of an unfortunate incident, typically in the form of an auto accident. A garage policy acts as a commercial auto policy for your dealership.
The garage liability insurance policy can be quite comprehensive and usually includes several coverages to protect your dealership from faulty workmanship (products and work) under a sublimit for broad form products, work performed and errors and omissions in various categories and limits.
Garage-keeper’s liability coverage provides protection for customer-owned units that are in the care, custody and control of your dealership. It can protect your dealership from damage done to a customer’s vehicle while in the shop, regardless of fault. However, in most cases, weather-related occurrences are excluded in a garage-keeper’s liability insurance policy.
Open lot insurance is an essential coverage that’s designed to protect the investment your dealership has in its vehicle inventory. Essentially, dealer open lot insurance is a property policy for vehicles owned by your dealership, it can provide physical damage coverage that can help with the costs of repairing or replacing owned inventory in the aftermath of a collision, theft or damage from another covered incident.
Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) is designed around the risks associated with hiring, managing and terminating employees. It can help with the costs of defending or remedying allegations of wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment and violations of U.S. Title VII. We work with your dealership to help manage risks by implementing human resources solutions such as training on hiring practices, employee relations and termination methods. We emphasize proper hiring practices using professional services, drug testing, pre-employment physicals and comprehensive interviews to avoid potential problems with a bad hire.
Essential for any business with employees, workers’ compensation is insurance coverage that can help with medical bills, wage replacement and other costs resulting from an injury on the job. It’s rare that a business can reject the protection of the Workers’ Compensation Act that offers full coverage, with no limit, for a worker injury.
Employers’ liability coverage is also provided for under workers’ compensation.
When considering the total value of your business, you may need excess liability limits over your garage liability, general liability and employer’s liability limits. In most cases, the underlying policies only offer a limit of $1 million, an amount that may be less than the value of your business. Commercial umbrella insurance is designed to cover your property for a value commensurate with reconstruction costs, inventory limits equal to the value of your investment in vehicles and liability limits to protect the ownership value of your business.
Proudly serving auto dealerships across the U.S., our know-how knows. It knows the risks that challenge your dealership. And it knows that you need specialty risk management programs to defend against them.
Some of our risk management services for auto dealerships include:
Hear from Ancira, a car dealership in Texas, about why they chose Higginbotham as their insurance broker.
Mike Mooney has specialized in the dealer space for the last 34 years.
Higginbotham understands the nuances of the auto dealership business, where we are a very cohesive group and claims handling is a top priority. We work for you!
Matthew Buss has over 20 years of experience working with Dealerships and the Auto Industry. He represents over 600 dealerships and his team over 1,000 auto dealerships nationwide, helping them with their insurance needs and assisting in the development of special programs for both dealers and manufacturers in tandem with Higginbotham’s carrier partners.
Matthew holds a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designation and received the Top Producer Award by Insurance Business America in 2019.
Drew Apperson started his insurance career in 1987 in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, working for a large independent agency primarily on construction, real estate and other large commercial accounts. In the following 15 years, Drew worked for a large national brokerage firm, which eventually brought him to San Antonio, TX, where he has led a team of professionals specializing in the franchised auto dealer sector for nearly two decades. As a managing director in Higginbotham’s San Antonio region, his team handles the insurance for over 350 dealership locations in Texas and several other states.
Drew holds the Chartered Property & Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) and Certified Risk Manager (CRM) designations, and he previously held Approved Coverholder Status at Lloyd’s of London. He has also served on many insurance company advisory boards and other industry-specific organizations.
A great plan starts with a conversation. Let’s talk about what you need.
