Where should we go to get good small business insurance for our arts businesses?
My local broker could not come up with a quote that suited my needs, which I thought was pretty strange, so I went to another broker and I got the same results. The third produced pretty much the same bland response that DID NOT give me what I wanted. They could all provide me with the usual plethora of insurances like public liability, employers’ liability, buildings and contents but none of these three could deal with the unique needs of an arts and crafts business. And for the life of me I could not understand why.
I could not get them to understand that some small businesses needed insurance for exhibitions. They did not know how to deal with making sure that goods left in someone else’s premises needed to be insured and sometimes that might involve a temporary structure which although secure was not a building. There was no off-the-shelf package to deal with craft fairs and shows? Why? For some reason too, no small business insurance broker could come to terms with small manufacturing, and then when it came to my chemicals and dangerous tools…….. ARRRGGGHHHH! They kept trying to make me into a big business and then that did not tally with the fact that I did not want to employ loads of people.
Small arts businesses often equals small turnover and small profits. Can the costs of insurance keep in line with this?
Everything, I was told, is possible but at the end of the day the exorbitant business insurance costs were NOT small – WHY? I objected to paying the massive fees that were totally out of proportion to the turnover and potential profitability of my small business. They did not seem to be able to cope with the fact that a small arts business is going to require many many different types of insurance but ON A SMALL SCALE.
It might well be that your experiences are very different. Perhaps you have found a broker or insurance company who has been able to satisfy your unique small business insurance needs. Years ago we used to have a deal with an arts organisation who did a bulk deal for all of its members. In desperation this was who I turned to get my small business insurance sorted. Even then, what I had to pay seemed way over the odds compared to the amount I was expecting to earn and it took quite a bit of tweaking to get it down to a more acceptable level. It then begged the question was it really worth it? No doubt there are some people out there who would say not and as a result choose not to be insured at all. Perhaps not such a wise thing to do.
Are there others out there who have had the same problems? Have they had problems with getting a small business insurance package that suits their needs for their particular arts business? Is there a broker who has been able to feed this niche market? I am sure that there are many visitors to this site who would be interested to know.
If you are an insurance broker or an insurance provider and you feel that your company can provide good insurance for small businesses and small arts businesses then please get in touch. We would be happy to consider adding a business profile page to this site for your particular insurance company.
