Mobile Mechanic Insurance: What Changes When You're Not in a Fixed Workshop
- Tim Jones
- Jul 6
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 2
A mobile mechanic pulls up to a customer's driveway in Brisbane's outer suburbs, opens the van, and gets to work on a car that isn't theirs, on a property that isn't theirs, with no workshop walls or overnight security around any of it. That's a fundamentally different risk profile to a fixed workshop, and it's one that generic mechanic insurance advice often glosses over. Here's what actually changes when your workshop is a van.
Your vehicle is your workshop, and your biggest asset
In a fixed workshop, the building carries a lot of the risk, fire, break-in, storm damage to the premises. As a mobile mechanic, that risk shifts almost entirely onto your van and what's inside it.
Van and fit-out cover Your van isn't just transport, it's a mobile workshop. If it's fitted out with shelving, a compressor, or built-in tool storage, that fit-out needs to be insured as part of the vehicle, not treated as an afterthought. A standard commercial vehicle policy may only cover the van itself, not the fit-out that makes it functional for your work.
Tools in transit Tools sitting in a locked workshop overnight are a different risk to tools sitting in a van parked on a street or a customer's driveway. Theft from vehicles is a real and common claim type for mobile trades, and cover needs to reflect that your tools are exposed differently to a fixed-premises operator's.
Working on someone else's property
This is the part that catches mobile mechanics out most often.
Liability away from your own premises Your public liability cover needs to extend properly to work performed at a customer's home or business, not just assumed to apply automatically because you hold a policy. Damage to a customer's driveway, garage, or nearby property while you're working is a liability exposure that looks different to anything that happens inside your own four walls.
Vehicles in your care, custody, or control As with workshop-based mechanics, a customer's vehicle in your care isn't covered by public liability, it needs motor trade cover. The difference for mobile operators is that this care, custody, or control might happen anywhere: a driveway, a car park, the side of a road for a breakdown call. Motor trade cover written with a fixed workshop in mind doesn't automatically extend to this, it needs to be specifically arranged for mobile work.
Access and appointment risk Working at a customer's home also means interacting with their property in ways a workshop visit doesn't, moving vehicles in tight driveways, working near garden beds or fencing, being on-site when kids or pets are around. None of this is unusual, but it does mean liability exposure is spread across many different locations rather than one controlled environment.
What mobile mechanics often assume is covered, but isn't
"My car insurance covers the van." Personal or standard vehicle insurance typically doesn't cover a vehicle used for trade purposes, or the tools and equipment inside it. It needs to be arranged as a commercial vehicle policy with the fit-out and contents specifically noted.
"My public liability covers me everywhere I work." It generally does extend beyond a fixed address, but the policy needs to be arranged with mobile work in mind from the start, not assumed to travel automatically.
"Motor trade cover is motor trade cover." As above, a policy built for an in-workshop mechanic doesn't automatically flex to cover mobile work. This is one of the most common gaps we see, and it's an easy one to miss if the policy was originally set up for workshop-only operations.
What this means for your cover
If you're a mobile mechanic, or run a business that's part mobile and part workshop, the starting point isn't "do I need insurance," it's making sure each piece, van and fit-out, tools in transit, public liability, and motor trade cover, is specifically arranged for how you actually work, not adapted from a workshop-first template.
Contact Monarch Insurance Brokers and we will walk through your current policy and tell you plainly where you stand.
Monarch Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd is an Authorised Representative of Morgan Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, authorised with ASIC under AFSL 700265.
Monarch Insurance Brokers AR Number 001322399.
