Property & Business Personal Property Insurance
Coverage for your building, showroom, signage, shop tools, lifts, and equipment — everything that isn't a vehicle.
Everything at your dealership that isn't a vehicle still has real value and real exposure: the building and showroom, the service bays and lifts, the diagnostic and shop equipment, your signage and pylon signs, office furniture, computers, and parts inventory. Commercial property and business personal property (BPP) coverage protects these assets against fire, storm, theft, and other covered causes of loss.
For dealers who own their building, property coverage protects the structure itself. For dealers who lease, BPP protects the substantial investment you've made in improvements, equipment, and contents inside a space you don't own. Either way, this is the coverage that rebuilds your physical operation after a fire or major storm so you can get back to selling and servicing.
What it covers
- Dealership building and structures (if owned)
- Showroom glass, tenant improvements, and betterments
- Service equipment — lifts, compressors, diagnostics
- Shop tools and parts inventory
- Signage, including pylon and monument signs
- Office contents, computers, and furniture
Building coverage vs. business personal property
Commercial property splits into two main buckets. Building coverage insures the physical structure — walls, roof, permanent fixtures, and often the service infrastructure — and is essential if you own your real estate. Business personal property (BPP) insures the movable things you own inside and around the building: tools, lifts, equipment, furniture, computers, signage, and parts inventory.
If you lease, you typically don't insure the building itself, but you absolutely need BPP plus 'tenant improvements and betterments' coverage for the money you've sunk into build-out — the service bays, the F&I offices, the showroom finishes. Underinsuring improvements is a frequent and painful gap for leasing dealers.
- Building — the structure you own
- BPP — tools, equipment, signage, contents you own
- Tenant improvements — build-out in a leased space
- Parts inventory and shop equipment
Replacement cost, coinsurance, and getting values right
Property claims turn on how your values and valuation basis are set. Replacement-cost coverage rebuilds and replaces at today's prices; actual-cash-value depreciates the payout. For a dealership's building and expensive shop equipment, replacement cost is almost always the right choice. Coinsurance clauses then penalize you at claim time if you insured the property for less than a required percentage of its true value — so getting your building and equipment values right up front directly protects your recovery.
Business income — the coverage dealers forget
If a fire closes your service department for three months, the lost profit and continuing expenses can exceed the cost of the physical damage itself. Business income (business interruption) coverage replaces the earnings and covers the ongoing bills while you rebuild. For a dealership whose service and F&I departments drive daily cash flow, pairing business income with property coverage is one of the highest-value decisions you can make.
Look closely at two details on the business-income form: the period of restoration and any extended business-income provision. The period of restoration is how long the coverage keeps paying while you rebuild — make sure it's realistic for how long it would actually take to reconstruct a dealership and re-stock. Extended business income continues paying for a set time after you reopen, while revenue ramps back to normal. For a dealership, that ramp-up period is real — customers don't all return the day the doors reopen — so building in extended business income protects the recovery, not just the outage.
Who needs this coverage
- Dealers who own their building
- Dealers leasing a showroom or lot with improvements
- Dealerships with a service or body shop
- Dealers with valuable signage and equipment
- Any dealer with parts inventory and shop tools
What drives your cost
Property & BPP questions, answered
No — vehicles you own for sale are covered under dealers open lot, not commercial property. Property and BPP cover your building, equipment, tools, signage, and contents. The two work together so both your facility and your inventory are protected.
Yes. You need business personal property coverage for your owned equipment and contents, plus tenant improvements and betterments coverage for the build-out you've invested in the leased space. The landlord's policy won't protect your equipment or your improvements.
It replaces lost profit and covers continuing expenses if a covered event shuts down your operation — for example, a fire closing your service department. For a dealership whose service and F&I revenue is daily cash flow, business income coverage is highly recommended alongside property.
Yes — pylon signs, monument signs, and building signage are typically covered as part of your property or business personal property, subject to your limits. Given how expensive dealership signage is, it's worth confirming the values are set correctly.
Related coverages
Placing property & bpp through a dealer specialist
Property & BPP rarely sits in isolation — it works alongside the rest of your dealer program, and getting the coordination right is where a specialist matters. As a Contractors Choice Agency program focused entirely on auto dealers, we structure your property & bpp so it lines up cleanly with your garage liability, your inventory coverage, and any umbrella above it — no overlapping premium you pay twice for, and no gap where a loss could fall between policies.
We shop your risk to A-rated carriers that genuinely want dealer business, present your operation in the best possible light to earn better pricing, and stay in your corner at renewal and at claim time. Whether you run a single independent lot or a multi-rooftop franchise group, in any of the 50 states, we'll right-size this coverage to how you actually operate rather than handing you a generic quote.
Tell us about your lot
Dealer type, inventory, and the coverages you need — by form or a quick call.
We build the program
We structure property & bpp and the rest of your account with the right carriers.
Bind and get certs
Review, bind, and receive the certificates your board, lender, and manufacturer require.
Ready to quote property & bpp?
Tell us about your dealership and we'll build a program that fits how you actually operate — often with same-day turnaround.