Home insurance with home-based business ...

[dipmicro]

I am wondering if others run into this and perhaps can give an advice.

I bought a house and need a home insurance. But the moment I mention home based business, they start panicking and then say they cannot insure me due to increased risk. I tried TD and Belairdirect so far.

This is ridiculous. People have warrior dogs, snakes, guns in their homes. I have electronic components. Everybody has electronic components in their computers, TVs, I have them in boxes. Gee, my espresso machine is more dangerous than what I sell.

Where can I find a reasonable insurer to buy the home insurance from?

[ricarmic]

Hi! Before I became a multi-site business, I had homebased business insurance tagged onto my home policy. It was with ING. As long as your business is only in your house, you should be ok. I know of others that have as well with other companies but I don't know other company names. I'll say it again that the key is that your business is only in your house. As soon as you go outside that it causes problems, as I discovered a few years ago!

[canadaspatchking]

dip - I found out the hard-way when I was honest with my then insurance company ,Primmum, that I was running a home-based business(es) and was asking about commerical insurance. When I asked them about the addition to my policy they quickly issued an immediate 30 day policy cancellation and sent me a registered letter to confirm I had received their note. Oh, and I had my car insurance with these guys as well.

Anyway, luckily a helpful (he is making money off the deal) insurance agent locally here in Ottawa set me up with commercial insurance and I moved my home and car insurance over just as quickly as I could. I don't actually remember the name of the insurance company off the top of my head.

But my advice would be to call a local broker in your area and ask them to look into it. If you want to know the insurance company name that I'm dealing with just drop me a note and I'll go looking for it.

Good luck... don't you just love insurance companies?

Incidentally, the call centre for my old insurance company called me about 2 months after they cancelled my home insurance asking me if I wanted to add home insurance with my car insurance for extra discounts. Oh the joy I had explaining to the young lady on the phone that in fact they had cancelled _my_ policy and that according to them my house was not insurable. Idiots...

[dipmicro]

Thanks guys !

I have been recomended StateFarm by my real estate guy, so I have two names on the post-it notes to call tomorrow and if that does not work, I googled up that Desjardins offers insurance for self-employed.

I am serious about my business, eBay or others, and want proper commercial insurance and was up-front with them. What really ticks me off is that first they ask all loads of questions, keep me on hold while talking to the manager, waste my time and cellphone air-time and then they tell me they have no license for commercial insurance? They did not know that at the beginning???

Some time ago I have canceled TD accounts because they were not able to offer better than posted mortgage rate to a 5yr customer (while other lender who did not know me was). Then I canceled my auto insurance with them, because after I called FSCO after they increased my premium by 14% without reason, their sorry excuse was "computer error". Now I will have my last policy with them expire and don't want to hear from these clowns again. Enormous glass tower in the middle of TO or not, they don't seem to be too serious about the business letting the bread and butter customer like myself slip away.

[coxengines]

One has to realize that insurance companies, just like banks, are "sunshine friends" (I like to call them "street workers" but that is doing the working girls injustice).

We pretty well went through the same scenario and are presently insured with "Peace Hills Insurance" in Alberta.

However, it costs $$'s. 1.6 mill building insurance costs $650. Adding the home-based business with 20k for office furniture and liability adds $220 to the premium.

Sounds about right, doesn't it? 🙂

Bernie

[coxengines]

Funny! Just tried to post this with a word beginning with whor.. and hook... but it did not let me. Big brother is watching lol!

Bernie

[dipmicro]

Bernie, everything costs money. You come somewhere, mention you are a business and they think you are made of it. Good example is business chequin account. Personal $3.95, business $49.94 🙂

Take the big brother here. You just sneeze on eBay and the invoice shows up.

[coxengines]

Banks are one of my favourite peeves. However, we now have 3 free business accounts (called Business Savings). Only charge is 50 cents for withdrawals, which we do once a week.

All expenses go through an unlimited chequing account ($10.50 month). We put an end to this bank nonsense long time ago.

Still tweaking on the insurance side...

Bernie

[recped]

OP, What's your reason for wanting business insurance?

[ds2286]

How true, if I had 3 wishes one would be that I would never have to deal with banks and insurance companies again.

Oh to dream!!

[axe_n_gear_music]

"OP, What's your reason for wanting business insurance?"

The reasons to have proper business insurance for your home based business are many- in fact too many to list here. (Unless you like to play Russian Roulette!) Here are just a couple:

Any number of different types of damages or loss to your stock or business related items due to fire, water, theft, etc, etc, etc, are NOT covered by personal insurance.

Further, liability is a HUGE issue nowadays. If, for example, a UPS driver slips and falls in your driveway while delivering business related items to your house, your private home insurance does not cover you. Not one single penny. You will lose everything.

Believe me, it's not easy to find a company who will cover your home business, but there are a few out there for sure, and it just takes some phoning around to find one.
The peace of mind knowing that you are properly covered is priceless (Just like having a proper will in place!!)

To sum it up- Running a business without proper insurance is like driving the wrong way down the highway at 100 miles an hour- it's only a matter of time before something bad happens!

Cheers,
AXE

[dipmicro]

OP, What's your reason for wanting business insurance?

Because I don't want to explain to my kids that we have to live on the street because the UPS guy delivering my business items got hit by a falling icicle ...

I realize that many people just do not disclose, which is fine according to "Insurance Act" (misrepresentation, non-disclosure). However ... there is much more activity going on during the day (business) than night (sleeping), so the probablity that something happens is higher during business time. And if there is a significant claim, insurance company will do everything possible and impossible to prevent the payout. Why to make it easy for them? For some $300 a year on top of my home insurance, I don't have to worry about liability.

[pierrelebel]

"Further, liability is a HUGE issue nowadays"

That is the way the insurance companies look at it. In addition to "the UPS guy delivering my business items got hit by a falling icicle", they see possible liabilities to the (potentially hazardous) products you may store and sell.