Commercial insurance has a vocabulary problem, not a difficulty problem. The actual system is simple: a small set of policies, each covering one category of bad day, most of them cheap at small-shop scale. Nobody needs all of them; almost everyone needs two. Below is the whole stack, what typically triggers each layer, and the honest cost ranges, so the COI request becomes a ten-minute errand instead of a week of dread.
01The stack, layer by layer
| Coverage | The bad day it covers | Who needs it | Typical small-shop cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Liability (GL) | A customer trips over your air hose; your grinder sends a spark into a neighbor's bay | Everyone. This is the one every lease requires, usually $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate | $40 to 90/mo |
| Business Personal Property | Fire, theft, or a burst pipe takes out your tools, racking, and inventory | Anyone whose gear costs more than they can shrug off, note the landlord's building policy covers the building, never your contents | $20 to 60/mo, scales with value |
| Commercial Auto | The work truck, doing work things, personal auto policies exclude business use, and find out at claim time | Anyone whose vehicle is part of the job | $80 to 200/mo per vehicle |
| Workers' Comp | An employee gets hurt | Required by law in most states from the first hire (rules vary), not optional once you employ | Varies by trade & payroll |
| Garagekeepers / Bailee | A customer's car (or gear) is damaged while in your care | Auto shops, detailers, repair trades, GL explicitly excludes customer property in your custody | $50 to 150/mo |
| Umbrella | The claim that blows past your GL limit | Later-stage shops with real revenue and real exposure | $40 to 80/mo per $1M |
General liability does not cover the customer property you're working on. The detailer's GL pays if a visitor slips in the bay, not if the ceramic-coating gun drops on a client's hood. That's garagekeepers/bailee coverage, it's the layer service trades most often discover they're missing, and they discover it at the worst possible moment. If customers' property sits in your bay overnight, price this layer from day one.
02What the lease will require, decoded
A one-page proof-of-coverage your insurer generates free, usually same-day, from a portal. This is the document the landlord wants before keys. It is not extra insurance; it's the receipt.
The lease will ask that the landlord be named on your GL policy, meaning if someone sues over an incident in your bay, your policy defends the landlord too. Standard, routine, usually free or a nominal fee. Every commercial insurer does this daily.
Most small-bay leases specify $1M/$2M GL. Read yours before buying so you purchase once. (Ask the Welcome Team for the lease’s insurance requirement in writing before you sign.)
Legalese for “our insurers won't sue each other.” Tell your agent the lease requires it; they'll add the endorsement. You don't need to understand it beyond that, you need it on the certificate.
03How to buy it in an afternoon
Get two quotes: one from an online small-business insurer (fast, fine for straightforward trades) and one from a local independent agent who writes your trade specifically (worth it the moment you have customer property, employees, or anything unusual in the bay). Describe your operation honestly, the trade, the equipment, whether customers visit, because a claim against a policy bought under a vaguer description is a claim that gets fought. Send your agent the lease's insurance section verbatim and say “quote me exactly this.” Total time, genuinely: about two hours, most of it hold music.
“Insurance isn't a cost of doing business. It's the receipt that proves you are one.”
Request Shop Manual updates by email. There is no fixed publication schedule. Free, whether you rent from us or not.
Request received.Insurance is one of the five lines in your true monthly cost, the other four are in the One United Price guide, and the requirements themselves live in the lease you now know how to interrogate.
