We have a golf course client that purchased Garagekeepers Coverage (CA 99 37 10 13) with direct, primary Comprehensive. The reason for buying the coverage was to cover cars in the club's valet parking lot, but there's nothing in the policy or the form to distinguish between valet parking and any other kind. The club has one big parking lot with a portion marked off for "Valet Parking Only," but there's no barriers or fences to separate one kind of parking from another.
A member of the club parked his own car in the non-valet portion of the lot and thieves stripped it of a $3,000 sound system. The insurance company refuses to pay the claim because the member parked it himself. It's our contention that customers' autos covered by the policy are not restricted to those parked by the valet service. Further, since it's all one big parking lot, and the entire location is included in the "Address Where You Conduct Garage Operations," the claim should be paid, subject to the deductible, of course.
Pennsylvania Subscriber
The Garagekeepers coverage policy states "this endorsement provides only those coverages for the location shown in the schedule". The policy states that the company "will pay all sums the "insured" legally must pay as damages for "loss" to a "customer's auto" or "customer's auto" equipment left in the "insured's" care while the "insured" is . . . parking. . . it in your "garage operations".
Comprehensive coverage covers the perils listed as Specified Causes of Loss as well as all other risks of loss that are not otherwise excluded. Theft is mentioned as a Specified Cause of Loss, so it is covered under Comprehensive coverage. The loss in this case was caused by theft of the customers personal property while he was parking on a location named in the declarations.
There is an exclusion for Theft, but only if the "loss" was due to theft or conversion caused in any way by an insured. As far as we know, the loss in question was not due to theft or conversion caused by an insured.
Exclusion 2 states that there is no coverage for tape decks or other sound-reproducing equipment unless permanently installed in a "customer's auto". The stolen property was indeed sound-reproducing equipment permanently installed in a customer's auto, so this exclusion does not apply to the situation at hand.
Despite the fact that there were two different sections of the same parking lot, the declarations page had only one address listed as the Address Where You Conduct Garage Operations, and according to our facts, no portion of the policy specified that the coverage only applied to one section of the parking lot located at the listed address.
This loss should be covered under the garagekeeper's policy.