Insurance for Tire Shops

What underwriters look at

Tire shops face one of the more serious liability exposures in the automotive retail space: a wheel that comes loose after service. If lug nuts aren't torqued correctly or a wheel is improperly mounted, the result can be a customer losing a wheel at highway speed, and the resulting claim can involve serious injury well beyond the cost of the original repair. Because the failure often shows up miles down the road rather than in the shop, these claims can be harder to trace and defend without good service documentation.

Lifts and heavy equipment add a second layer of risk. Employees working under raised vehicles face crush injuries if a lift fails or is loaded improperly, and tire mounting machines and high-pressure inflation equipment carry their own injury potential, including cases where a tire has been overinflated or damaged during mounting. Many shops also run road-service trucks for flat repairs and mobile installs, which adds commercial auto exposure on top of the shop's premises risk.

Tire shops also carry inventory risk, since a well-stocked shop can have a large amount of capital tied up in tires and wheels that are attractive theft targets. Between installation liability, lift-related injuries, and vehicles on the road performing service calls, a tire shop's insurance program needs to address both the shop floor and everything that happens away from it.