Garage liability symbols are the numbered codes, 21 through 31, that appear on the declarations page of a garage coverage form (ISO form CA 00 05) and define which vehicles each coverage line actually responds to. The number sitting next to a coverage on your declarations page is doing real work: it decides whether a claim gets paid or denied. Symbol 21 is the broadest and Symbol 31 the narrowest, and the ten in between carve out specific categories of owned, hired, borrowed, scheduled, customer-owned, and inventory vehicles.
The symbol system runs on the garage form used by repair shops, body shops, service stations, parking garages, storage facilities, detailers, inspection stations, and historically auto dealers (most of whom now use the Auto Dealers Coverage Form, which uses the same symbol logic). If your business takes custody of other people’s vehicles or runs a fleet tied to automotive services, these numbers govern your coverage.
Symbols 21 Through 24: Ownership-Based Coverage
The first four symbols sort vehicles by who owns them.
Symbol 21 — Any Auto. The broadest designation. It covers every vehicle involved in your garage operations, whether you own it, hire it, borrow it, or it belongs to someone else entirely. It is the symbol that minimizes gaps because it does not care how the vehicle ended up in your hands.
Symbol 22 — Owned Autos Only. Limits coverage to vehicles your business actually owns. For liability purposes, it also picks up trailers you don’t own while they’re attached to a power unit you do own. Rented, borrowed, and employee-driven vehicles fall outside this symbol.
Symbol 23 — Owned Private Passenger Autos Only. Narrows further to just the passenger cars your business owns. Tow trucks, service vans, and heavy equipment are not covered.
Symbol 24 — Owned Autos Other Than Private Passenger. The inverse of 23. It covers your commercial vehicles like tow trucks, flatbeds, and parts delivery vans, but excludes passenger cars. Like Symbol 22, it extends liability to non-owned trailers hitched to your covered power units.
Symbols 22, 23, and 24 all pick up newly acquired vehicles of the specified type automatically for the rest of the policy period. You don’t need to call your insurer every time you buy a new truck if Symbol 24 is on your declarations page.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Symbols 25 and 26: State Compliance
Two symbols exist specifically to satisfy state-mandated insurance requirements.
Symbol 25 — Owned Autos Subject to No-Fault. Covers only your owned vehicles required to carry no-fault (personal injury protection) benefits in the state where they’re licensed or principally garaged. This symbol activates the no-fault portion of the policy to keep you compliant.
Symbol 26 — Owned Autos Subject to Compulsory Uninsured Motorists Law. Covers only your owned vehicles that are required by state law to carry uninsured motorists coverage where that coverage cannot be rejected. If a covered vehicle is hit by an uninsured driver, this is the symbol that triggers the policy’s response.
Both symbols extend automatically to newly acquired vehicles of the same type for the rest of the policy period.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Symbols 27 Through 29: Scheduled, Hired, and Non-Owned
Symbol 27 — Specifically Described Autos. The most restrictive designation. Coverage applies only to the individual vehicles listed by name in the declarations, and the insurer charges a specific premium for each one. If a vehicle isn’t on the schedule, there’s no coverage. The 30-day rule is where shops get hurt: when you acquire a new vehicle, you have 30 days to report it. Miss that window and the new vehicle has no protection. That is a sharp contrast to Symbols 21 through 26, where newly acquired vehicles are covered automatically with no reporting deadline.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Symbol 28 — Hired Autos Only. Covers vehicles your business formally leases, rents, or borrows from outside parties. Rent a flatbed to haul parts across town and total it, and Symbol 28 responds. What it does not cover is any vehicle you lease, rent, or borrow from your own employees, partners, LLC members, or their household members. That exclusion catches people off guard. If your shop manager lends you his personal truck for a delivery run, Symbol 28 won’t treat it as a hired auto.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Symbol 29 — Non-Owned Autos Used in Your Garage Business. Fills the gap Symbol 28 deliberately leaves. It covers any vehicle you don’t own, lease, hire, rent, or borrow that gets used in connection with your garage business. The common trigger is an employee driving a personal car on a work errand: picking up a part, dropping off a customer, running to the paint store. Symbol 29 protects your business if that employee causes an accident while on the clock.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Symbols 30 and 31: Customer Vehicles and Dealer Inventory
Symbol 30 — Autos Left With You for Service, Repair, Storage, or Safekeeping. This symbol triggers garagekeepers coverage, which protects your business when a customer’s vehicle is damaged, stolen, or destroyed while in your possession. Standard commercial general liability policies contain a broad exclusion for property in your care, custody, or control, meaning your CGL won’t pay when a customer’s car catches fire in your shop overnight. Symbol 30 exists to fill that gap. It covers any customer’s vehicle or trailer left with you, and “customers” includes your own employees and their household members as long as they’re paying for the service.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Garagekeepers coverage under Symbol 30 can be written on a legal liability basis or a direct coverage basis, and the difference matters. Legal liability pays only if your shop was actually at fault. Direct coverage pays regardless of fault, so if a hailstorm damages every car on your lot, direct coverage responds even though you did nothing wrong. Direct coverage can be primary or excess. The chosen basis should appear on the declarations page alongside Symbol 30.
Symbol 31 — Dealers Autos (Physical Damage Coverages). A first-party coverage that protects the dealer’s own inventory, from new models on the showroom floor to used trade-ins awaiting reconditioning. Unlike Symbol 30, which protects against liability for someone else’s property, Symbol 31 lets the dealer recover repair or replacement costs for damage to its own stock. If a windstorm tears through a lot and dents 40 vehicles, Symbol 31 is the mechanism for filing that claim.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Where Symbol Choice Creates Gaps
The dangerous mistake in garage insurance isn’t choosing a low limit. It’s choosing the wrong symbol. Every symbol intentionally excludes certain vehicles, and the gaps between them do not overlap the way people assume.
Consigned vehicles are the classic example. A shop that takes a car on consignment for resale doesn’t own it (so Symbol 22 doesn’t apply), didn’t hire or rent it (so Symbol 28 doesn’t apply), and the car isn’t being used by a non-owner in the garage business in the typical sense (so Symbol 29 is a stretch). A policy that stacks 22, 28, and 29 instead of using 21 gives the insurer room to argue that consigned inventory falls through the cracks. Symbol 21 eliminates the problem because it covers any auto, regardless of ownership arrangement.
Symbol 27 produces a different kind of gap. A busy repair operation might buy a used parts van at auction on a Tuesday and forget to report it. If it crashes on day 35, the reporting window has closed and there’s no coverage. Shops with a rotating fleet are almost always better served by Symbol 22 or 21, where new acquisitions are picked up automatically.
The split between 28 and 29 trips up businesses that carry one but not the other. Symbol 28 without 29 leaves out the employee’s personal car used on a parts run. Symbol 29 without 28 leaves out the rental truck picked up for a weekend job. Businesses that rely on both kinds of vehicles need both symbols, or Symbol 21 to cover everything.
Exclusions No Symbol Can Override
Even Symbol 21 doesn’t make the policy unlimited. The garage coverage form carries exclusions that apply no matter which symbol you selected.
Pollution is excluded broadly. Chemical discharges, fuel spills, and other contamination events are not covered, whether they originate from a covered vehicle or from your premises, and the exclusion extends to transport, storage, and disposal of pollutants. Shops that handle used oil, refrigerants, or solvents need separate environmental liability coverage.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Racing and demolition events are excluded. Any covered auto used in professional or organized racing, demolition contests, or stunting has no coverage during those activities.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
Contractual liability is excluded with a narrow exception. The policy still covers liability assumed under an “insured contract” (the form’s term for certain standard agreements) and liability you’d have even without the contract. A broad hold-harmless agreement promising to indemnify a landlord for any claim on the premises may still leave the assumed portion outside coverage, depending on the contract’s terms.1New York Office of General Services. Garage Coverage Form
No symbol selection overrides any of these. A shop owner who writes Symbol 21 across the declarations page and assumes full protection still has real exposure in each of these areas.