If April showers bring May flowers, June brings hail. The highest hail numbers on a national scale occur in June as warmth and humidity build across the United States. For auto dealerships, hail means significant risks, like vehicle damage costing hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of dollars. On top of that, hail can bring delayed selling timelines and unexpected expenses like canopies and repair.
From 2008 to 2018, damage from hail alone was $19 billion or more annually. As a result, major commercial auto insurance providers are increasing premiums and deductibles and choosing not to renew policies with dealerships, citing “catastrophic” losses due to hail damage. Car dealerships must find costly solutions to protect inventory, like purchasing canopy systems or relocating to covered lots. Vortex Weather Insurance believes it’s time for a new approach.
The Need for Hail Insurance & Other Weather Insurance Solutions For Your Dealership
Vortex’s Auto – HailSafe is affordable and straightforward car dealership hail insurance. Traditional insurance quoting and adjusting takes too long. With ever-increasing premiums and deductibles, Auto – HailSafe is a quick and simple cost-effective insurance product to bridge the financial gap left by traditional policies.
Not insuring your lot is risky business. Here are five reasons why auto dealerships need hail insurance:
- Reduce risks
- Protects inventory
- Satisfies lender requirements
- Protect profits
- Provides confidence
Reduce Your Risks
Car lots run a lot of risks: break-ins, weather, maintenance, and more. Car dealership hail insurance provides dealers affordable solutions to insure against adverse weather and help protect inventory in a way that makes sense for your bottom line.
Wondering if your auto dealership is at risk for hail? The majority of large hail storms in the U.S. occur along “Hail Alley,” a mile-high plain running along Colorado’s Front Range of the Rockies, spanning a region from Texas and Oklahoma up to North and South Dakota. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the top five states for hail losses are Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas, and the risk areas are increasing each year. Atypical states like Maine, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, and Idaho are seeing increases in damaging hail storms. If you don’t have coverage, you could be at risk.
Protect Your Inventory
Every year, hail causes billions of dollars in damage to property, cars, and trucks. A severe storm can take a severe toll on vehicles with broken windows, dents, dings, and even engine damage, sometimes resulting in total loss of the car.
There is not much a car dealership can do to protect an open lot from the impact of hail. But you can help protect your inventory against the financial implications. Car dealership hail insurance from Vortex settles payments fast. It eliminates the use of deductibles, meaning more money in your pocket to make necessary repairs that keep sales, and customers, coming in.
Satisfy Lender Requirements
In-house and out-of-house lenders have specific requirements for cars with hail damage. Sometimes, lenders won’t even allow customers to buy vehicles with hail damage if it’s too extensive. How to buy a car with hail damage should result in a good deal for buyers, not a roadblock for financing.
Car dealership hail insurance can help dealers repair cars to lender-approved conditions by offering payouts that are in line with the damage that occurred. Policy payouts can cover damage to vehicles, roofs, property loss, revenue loss, advertising, and other business expenses.
Protect Your Profits
Auto dealers know that the profit margins on selling cars are much slimmer than customers think. The average car buyer believes car dealers make about a 20% profit on the sale of a $30,000 car. According to 2018 data from the National Automobile Dealers Association, it’s closer to 2.2%.
Damages to vehicles can erase those margins and put a dealership in the red when it comes to their bottom line. Typical inventory insurance requires a slow and painful wait on adjuster’s valuations, potentially causing a lack of focus on sales and tying up service bays. Vortex’s Auto – HailSafe automated insurance claims are based simply off indexed hail data, so settlement payouts are fast, allowing your dealership to focus on increasing margins.
Never Fear A Storm Again
How often have you stood inside your showroom, worrying about inventory as hail bounces down from the sky? Time and time again, you worry if your insurance company will provide adequate payouts. With typical insurance, coverage requirements are complex with loss history, hail matrixes, or PDR/ conventional repair, and limited options result in frustration and unwanted features.
Vortex’s Auto – HailSafe policies are backed by technology. Understory’s innovative sensors provide detailed, ground-level weather data to make policy payouts simple. Gone are the days of wondering how you’ll prove that your inventory has adequate damage for a claim. Vortex weather insurance for car dealerships offers a simple, transparent alternative to traditional insurance with:
- Automatic claims: Say goodbye to dealing with insurance adjusters on hail damage.
- Fast settlements: Receive payouts in one to two weeks, typically.
- Zero deductible: Parametric insurance eliminates the use of financial deductibles.
- Chose-your-own-coverage: Policy payouts can cover damage to vehicles, roofs, property loss, revenue loss, advertising, and other business expenses.
- Flexible customization: Choose from three tiers of coverage tailored to storm severity and desired payout.
Weather causes billions of dollars in damage each year. Inadequate weather risk practices have led to unaffordable insurance products, leaving the marketplace vulnerable. Vortex believes there’s a better way to help protect your investments. Our flexible, cost-effective hail insurance for auto dealerships has no claims adjusters, no financial deductibles, and fast payouts. Learn more today.
