Guides
Garage door service insurance: coverage explained and priced
Garage door service insurance covers tools, vehicles, completed work and injuries, and premiums are built from payroll, sales and claims history.
What to take away
- A garage door service package is four lines: general liability, commercial auto, inland marine for tools, and workers' compensation.
- General liability pays a third party you injure or damage. It pays nothing toward your own injury, your truck, or your tools.
- Completed operations, inside the liability line, covers a door that fails after you leave.
- Indicative premiumsliability $600 to $2,500, tools $250 to $900, auto $1,800 to $4,500 per van, workers' comp $3 to $12 per $100 of payroll.
- Premium is rated on sales, payroll, vehicle count, service radius and claims history, so similar shops pay different rates.
Four lines bound into one package
A commercial package for this trade is usually four policies issued together.
Four policies in a package
General liability
- Covers
- Others' injury, property
- Example claim
- Panel on car
- Typical limit
- $1M/$2M
Commercial auto
- Covers
- Truck, trailer, load
- Example claim
- Spring off tailgate
- Typical limit
- Policy limit
Inland marine
- Covers
- Tools off-site
- Example claim
- Tool stolen
- Typical limit
- Scheduled or blanket
Workers' comp
- Covers
- The technician
- Example claim
- Employee injury
- Typical limit
- Statutory
General liability responds when your work injures someone or damages property you do not own. Limits commonly start at $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate.
Commercial auto covers the truck, the trailer and the load. A torsion spring that rolls off a tailgate is a cargo claim, not a liability claim.
Workers' compensation covers the technician and is statutory rather than shopped.
| Line | What it pays | Indicative annual premium |
|---|---|---|
| General liability | Third-party injury and property damage, including completed operations | $600 to $2,500 |
| Commercial auto | Vehicles, trailers and cargo in transit | $1,800 to $4,500 per vehicle |
| Inland marine | Tools and parts away from the shop | $250 to $900 |
| Workers' compensation | Medical and wage benefits for injured employees | $3 to $12 per $100 of payroll |
These are planning ranges for a US repair shop with sales under $500,000, not quotes.
What moves the premium, in priced terms
What moves the premium
- A first technician.Payroll enters the workers' comp rating. At $6 per $100 of payroll, a $52,000 wage bill adds about $3,100 a year.
- Commercial installation work.General liability is rated on sales and subcontracted cost. A $1 million sales shop can see that line rise from roughly $1,200 to $4,000.
- A second van.Auto is rated per vehicle. A clean-record driver on a 25 mile radius may add $2,000 or more.
Ask the broker to show the class code and exposure basis behind each line. Two quotes built on different bases are not a comparison.
The guide to pricing garage door jobs argues that the job price has to hold before a rating change lands.
Example: a two van shop in Ohio
Assume $420,000 in sales, $96,000 of payroll, two vans, residential repair only, no claims in three years.
- General liability at $3.50 per $1,000 of salesabout $1,470.
- Commercial auto, two vans at $2,100 each$4,200.
- Tool floater on $18,000 of scheduled equipmentabout $600.
- Workers' comp, $96,000 of payroll at $5.20 per $100, before any experience credit: about $4,990.
The four lines total near $11,260 a year, or about $940 a month. This is an illustrative build, not a quote, and rates vary by state and class code.
What the policy will not pay
Exclusions decide more than limits do, so read the ones naming the work you do most.
- Faulty workmanship.Redoing your own installation is generally excluded.
- Your own injury.General liability pays other people, so a sole owner still needs workers' comp in most states.
- Personal auto use.A claim on a wrapped truck is often denied outright.
- Unlisted tools and subs.A blanket limit carries a per-item cap, and a sub's work needs written confirmation.
The gap owners find during a claim is usually a subcontractor's coverage. Whether the technician who did the work was licensed is a second question, and the license requirements research sets out how to answer it early.
Workers' compensation in the United States, and Canada
Most states adopt class rates filed by the National Council on Compensation Insurance, and a few file their own. North Dakota, Ohio, Washington and Wyoming run monopolistic state funds, so there is no private carrier to shop.
Texas lets most private employers opt out of coverage. Payroll means the wages you pay a technician, not the revenue you bill a customer.
Canada is the second market for this site. There the same line runs through provincial boards, including WSIB in Ontario and WCB in Alberta, at rates set per $100 of assessable payroll.
Records and rules that make a claim payable
An insurer's conditions are not advice. They are terms you agreed to.
Insurers look for a written program, and OSHA's employer material on safety and health program management describes the shape of one. The daily record comes from the kit listed in the equipment checklist for new owners.
- Photograph the door, the springs and the surrounding structure before work starts.
- Log what was found, what was done, who did it, and which parts went in.
- Isolate energy before spring, opener or electrical work, following the lockout/tagout standard.
- Keep a current certificate of insurance for every subcontractor on file.
- File the signed authorization and the invoice with the job photos.
The PPE standard sets out what an employer must supply on a service call.
Common questions
How much does garage door service insurance cost?
There is no single number, because the rating inputs are yours. A one-van repair shop often spends $3,000 to $7,500 a year on liability, auto and tools before workers' comp.
Is general liability enough on its own?
No. It answers third-party injury and property damage and nothing else. It pays nothing for your own injury, your truck or your tools.
Does a subcontractor need their own coverage?
Ask your broker how subcontracted work is treated on your policy, and get the answer in writing first. It is the gap found most often during a claim.
What if the insurer's conditions conflict with how we work?
Then one of the two has to change, and it will not be the policy. The operations and workflow guide shows how to write those conditions into daily job steps, so the conflict surfaces before a claim does.
