Garage Liability and Products Completed Operations Claim

Our insured runs a tire service station and he has a standard garage coverage form A customer brought a tire in for repair/patch, and then left the shop with the fixed tire. The tire later allegedly exploded when the customer was back at his own facility putting the tire back on his vehicle. The customer is making a claim for his bodily injuries.

Does the garage form cover this type of event even if the accident and injury occur off the insured's premises?

Ohio Subscriber

The garage form does apply to claims such as this one. The insuring agreement on the garage form is for all sums that the insured legally must pay as damages because of BI or PD, caused by an accident and resulting from garage operations. Garage operations is a defined term on the policy and means the ownership, maintenance, or use of locations for garage business and includes all operations necessary or incidental to a garage business. This is not language that restricts liability coverage to premises only because fixing tires is an operation necessary or incidental to a garage business and the consequences of that operation are not restricted to the insured's premises.

The garage form does have an exclusion for property damage to work performed by the named insured, but this does not affect a claim for bodily injury. The insured has products/completed operations coverage for this claim.