COISoftware collects a certificate of insurance from every vehicle transporter, detailer, body shop, mobile mechanic, lot-maintenance crew, tow operator and service-lane vendor your dealership relies on, reads each ACORD 25 with AI, checks the coverage and limits against what you require, and confirms your dealership is named as additional insured. Built for US new-car franchises, used-car dealers and dealer groups that hand vehicles and lot access to outside vendors every day. Upload a COI above to see it read in seconds.
Last updated June 2026
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Dealership vendors carry very different risks, so most agreements require different coverage by vendor type. These are common starting points, not legal or insurance advice.
| Vendor type | Coverage commonly required | Why the dealership requires it |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle transporters and haulers | High commercial auto, motor truck cargo, general liability, additional insured | A carrier moving a load of your vehicles needs auto and cargo limits high enough to cover the cars on the trailer |
| Sublet body shops and mobile mechanics | Garagekeepers, garage or general liability, auto, additional insured, waiver of subrogation | They take a customer or dealer vehicle into their care, custody and control, which general liability alone does not cover |
| Detailers and reconditioning vendors | Garagekeepers, general liability, workers compensation, additional insured | Working on vehicles in their care creates damage and injury exposure standard liability does not address |
| Lot maintenance, snow removal and landscaping | General liability, commercial auto, workers compensation, additional insured | On-lot work near inventory and customers creates property and bodily injury risk |
| Tow operators and repossession services | On-hook or garagekeepers, high commercial auto, general liability, additional insured | A towed or stored vehicle is in their control, so on-hook and auto coverage protect the vehicle and the dealership |
| Valet, porter and shuttle services | Garagekeepers, commercial auto, general liability, additional insured | Staff driving customer and dealer vehicles create auto and care, custody and control exposure |
Set requirements to your own vendor agreements, OEM franchise standards and state law. Garagekeepers and motor truck cargo are distinct from general liability. Limits and coverages shown are common starting points, not legal or insurance advice.
A dealership hands its cars, and its lot, to a steady stream of outside vendors: carriers hauling inventory in and out, detailers and reconditioning crews, sublet body shops and mobile mechanics, lot-maintenance and snow-removal contractors, tow operators and valet services. Many of them take a customer or dealer vehicle into their care, custody and control, which is exactly the exposure a basic liability check ignores. Verifying the right coverage on every vendor, by hand, while the sales and service floor keeps moving is where the gaps open.
A transporter hauling your inventory, a sublet body shop repairing a customer car, a mobile mechanic or a detailer all take a vehicle into their control. Standard general liability does not pay when that vehicle is damaged in their care. You need to confirm garagekeepers or the right auto coverage is actually on the certificate, which a date-only spreadsheet never checks.
A carrier moving vehicles between auctions, the port, other rooftops and your lot needs commercial auto and often motor truck cargo at limits high enough to cover a load of vehicles. A transporter short on auto limits, or missing cargo coverage, is a real loss waiting to happen, and confirming the limits meet your requirement is detailed work done on every certificate.
Detailers, porters, lot services, mobile techs and reconditioning vendors come and go, and each new one arrives with a fresh certificate to read and verify. Across a single store, let alone a dealer group, that is a constant flow of COIs landing in email and on the service drive that someone has to chase, read and file.
Your vendor agreements require the dealership to be named as additional insured on a primary and noncontributory basis, often with a waiver of subrogation, so the vendor policy responds first when its work damages a vehicle or injures someone on your lot. A certificate that lists the dealership only as certificate holder provides none of that, and nobody notices until a claim.
A detailer or transporter whose policy was good when you onboarded them can be cancelled or non-renewed weeks later while they are still handling your vehicles. Checking coverage once at signup misses the vendor whose coverage dropped mid-term, which is precisely when an uninsured loss hurts.
A tab of vendors with manual dates breaks once you account for every store, department and vendor in a group. Renewals slip, endorsements go unchecked, and proving you verified coverage before a vendor touched a vehicle means digging through email when a claim, an OEM audit or your own insurer asks.
The certificate a vendor hands over at onboarding is a snapshot from the day it was issued, not proof of coverage on the day a transporter wrecks a load or a body shop damages a customer car. Confirming that every vendor carries the limits your agreement requires, carried the garagekeepers, auto and cargo coverage the work demands, named your dealership as additional insured, and kept the policy current is repetitive, rules-based work across a constant flow of certificates, which is exactly what software handles well. Certificate of insurance management software reads every certificate, checks it against your requirements, and flags anything short, expired or missing, so a fixed-ops or office manager is not verifying PDFs by hand on the service drive.
COISoftware reads every transporter, detailer, body shop and lot vendor certificate, checks it against your requirements, confirms the garagekeepers, auto and cargo coverage and the additional insured endorsements your agreements rely on, and gives your dealership one defensible view of who is actually covered across every store and department.
Upload a certificate from a transporter, detailer, body shop, mobile mechanic, lot-maintenance crew or tow operator and the AI pulls the insurer, policy numbers, coverage types, limits, effective and expiration dates, and additional insured wording, even from scans and phone photos.
Enter the coverages, limits and endorsements your vendor agreements require, and every certificate is checked against the right rule, so a transporter short on auto limits or a body shop missing garagekeepers is flagged automatically before it handles a vehicle.
For vendors who take a vehicle into their care, COISoftware checks that garagekeepers or the right auto coverage is present at your required limit, instead of assuming a general liability certificate covers damage to a car in their control.
For carriers hauling your inventory, COISoftware confirms commercial auto and motor truck cargo are present at the limits you require, so a transporter moving a load of vehicles is actually covered for the cars on the trailer.
See whether your dealership is named as additional insured, and whether primary and noncontributory and waiver of subrogation endorsements are present, so the protection your vendor agreement assumes is verified rather than guessed from a checked box.
When a vendor certificate is cancelled, non-renewed or about to expire, COISoftware flags it and chases for a current COI automatically, so a detailer or transporter whose coverage dropped while still handling your vehicles is caught fast.
COISoftware reads the ACORD 25 and the broader certificate of liability insurance, then ties every vendor certificate into full certificate of insurance management software and ongoing vendor insurance compliance tracking. When a certificate looks off, the same checks behind certificate of insurance verification flag it for review. Transporters and carriers hauling your inventory are tracked the same way as COI tracking for logistics, and dealer groups running multiple rooftops manage every store on one dashboard the same way as COI tracking for franchises. It is the insurance-verification layer that works alongside the dealer management system you already run, not a replacement for it.
Tracking insurance across every transporter, detailer and shop follows the same four steps as tracking a handful of vendors.
Enter the coverages, limits and endorsements your vendor agreements require, and vary them by vendor type so a transporter, a body shop and a detailer each get the right rule. Include high commercial auto, motor truck cargo, garagekeepers, additional insured and waiver of subrogation where the work demands them.
Tip: Set higher auto and garagekeepers limits for any vendor who takes a vehicle into their care, custody or control.
Request a COI from each vendor before it hauls, repairs, details or stores a vehicle, or upload the certificates your office and fixed-ops teams already receive. The AI reads every one automatically, so verifying coverage across every vendor and store does not turn into hours of manual data entry.
Each certificate is checked against the requirement for that vendor type. Short limits, missing garagekeepers, cargo or auto coverage, absent endorsements, expired policies and a missing additional insured are flagged before a vendor ever handles a vehicle on your lot.
Automated reminders chase any expiring certificate, and a cancelled or non-renewed policy is flagged mid-term, so coverage stays current for every vendor across every store without a manager tracking dates by hand.
Anyone responsible for proving that every vendor who handles a vehicle or works the lot carries the coverage the agreement requires.
An office, fixed-ops or risk manager at a dealership is accountable for insurance on every vendor the store puts to work, from transporters to detailers to lot crews. COISoftware turns each agreement requirement into a live status, so a manager sees a clear pass or flag instead of chasing certificates from every vendor and reconciling them by hand. A dealer group running multiple rooftops tracks every store on one dashboard the same way as COI tracking for franchises.
An independent or used-car dealer relies on the same transporters, detailers, body shops and tow operators, and still has to confirm the required limits and endorsements on every one. The same dashboard tracks every vendor and scope, and carriers hauling inventory are verified the same way as COI tracking for logistics.
A service department that sublets body, glass, mechanical and reconditioning work has to prove every sublet vendor carries garagekeepers and names the dealership as additional insured before a customer vehicle leaves the lot. To collect, verify and monitor every certificate in one place, pair this with vendor insurance compliance software, and if you are comparing platforms, our best COI tracking software roundup walks through the options honestly.
A dealership typically requires general liability, workers compensation and commercial auto from vendors, plus garagekeepers or the right auto coverage from anyone who takes a vehicle into their care, custody and control, such as transporters, body shops, detailers, tow operators and valet. Carriers hauling inventory should also carry motor truck cargo. Almost every agreement requires the dealership to be named as additional insured on a primary and noncontributory basis, and the certificate has to show all of it.
Garagekeepers coverage pays for damage to a customer or dealer vehicle while it is in a vendor care, custody or control, such as a body shop, detailer, tow operator or valet. A dealership requires it because general liability does not pay when the damaged property is a vehicle the vendor was working on or storing. Verifying garagekeepers is on the certificate, at an adequate limit, is the check a basic liability review misses.
Vehicle transporters hauling dealership inventory need commercial auto liability and motor truck cargo coverage at limits high enough to cover the value of the vehicles on the trailer, plus general liability. Dealerships should also be named as additional insured. The cargo coverage is the key piece, because auto liability alone may not pay for damage to the cars being hauled, and the limit has to be sized to a full load of vehicles.
Dealerships track vendor certificates by recording each vendor agreement requirement, collecting a COI from every vendor, checking the coverages and limits against the rule for that vendor type, confirming additional insured status, and monitoring expiration. Doing this by hand across many vendors and stores is slow and easy to let slip, so most dealer groups move to COI tracking software that reads each certificate and flags any that are short, missing garagekeepers or expired.
Dealerships require additional insured status so they can be defended and covered under the vendor policy when a claim arises from that vendor work, such as a detailer damaging a car or a lot crew injuring a customer. Adding primary and noncontributory means the vendor policy pays first, and a waiver of subrogation stops the vendor insurer from coming back against the dealership. A certificate that lists the dealership only as certificate holder provides none of that protection.
Yes. Used-car and independent dealers rely on the same transporters, detailers, body shops, tow operators and lot crews as franchise stores, and face the same care, custody and control exposure when those vendors handle a vehicle. The vendor base may be smaller, but a single uninsured loss, a wrecked transport load or a damaged customer car, is just as expensive, so verifying coverage and additional insured status on every vendor still matters.
Pricing depends on how many vendors you track and whether you want self-serve software or a managed service. COISoftware lists transparent monthly pricing and offers a free tier, so a single store or a dealer group can start reading and verifying certificates without a sales call. You can test it on your own vendor certificates before paying anything.
