Insurance Work TOO GOOD

[wberminio]

Got a call from insurance broker.
Seems that my insurance co saw my website and said my work was better than what they are insuring me for.Plus they said I was a furniture maker
primarily, not a cabinetmaker.What's up with that?
I work mainly in wood,most the furniture is from the past.
In this economy you have to do what comes in,right?
Broker said they are doing me a favor looking for another company.They only write policies for $5,000.00 and up
I've been with them for 15 years.
I'm looking for another broker today.
BTW -As of today I'm no longer a furniture maker.Who know about tomorrow?

Erminio

[myxpykalix]

It's all about money.....so much for 15 years of customer loyalty huh? What is the difference between cabinet maker or furniture maker? The cost of all your equipment is the same. The cost of material to build your product is proabably relatively the same. The only difference is the different classification probably puts you into a higher paying bracket. I'd look for a whole new broker, insurance co and tell them to go piss up a rope.

[navigator7]

Wow. How subjective!
That seems very unprofessional.
Are they insuring you for damage to your shop, equipment and damage you may cause while on a job site?
Your gross sales is a sure fire tried and true method of establishing risk.
Looks like a little web surfing cost them a customer?

I presume you sell some stuff. A shop full of a years worth of work and wood turned into art and functioning product might indeed be hard to insure.

Maybe it will be good for you to go look around....and bring up the website issue?

[gene]

I WAS with state farm for over 20 years and had a claim on a rental house . After they settled the claim i was dropped like a hot potato . That isnt the worst of it, They put my claim on a national register list and for the last 3 years i cant afford the insurance quotes i have been given and most of the other companies wont quote me at all. My home owners went from 880.00 a year to just at 9000.00 a year. Its definately all about the money.

[ghostcreek]

Seems like another Insurance reform needed. I've been "lucky?" here in rural No. Calif. only small raises on my insurances. My Insurer rates me by my state contractors license, "cabinetry, millwork, finish carpentry. Is this just a regional thing?

[signsbyjay]

I once worked with a man who's dad was 65, had used the same insurance company for auto insurance since he was 18 and never had a claim. They canceled his insurance and their reason was "you are due for a big one, and we don't want to be there when it happens".

[cabnet636]

and we are complaining about insurance reform?

[cookie]

I was canceled by SF once and another company doubled my rate or just a way of canceling me. I never had a claim in 30 years for my cabinet shop or any claims besides some hail damage (less than $1000). I was told once that if I made chairs I would need more insurance. Don't you just love insurance.

[michael_schwartz]

I am not allowed under my commercial liability policy to make children's furniture or bar stools. I inquired as to whether or not I could on my own with the understanding there would be no coverage in the event of a lawsuit resulting from such a product, and the answer was that I still couldn't due to the fact they would be named in the lawsuit anyway.

In the eyes of the insurance company your skills and knowledge do not matter.... I am pretty sure any children's furniture or bar stools I could make would be safer and of better quality than most you could buy at the store. But their not going to take your word for it since statistics and the assumption that you have no common sense run the industry.

[wberminio]

Just spoke with my broker(the real boss of the company),.I shot him a not too friendly email last night.Called me in the AM.Told me not to worry.He has other policies in the works.Pays to not waste time,go right to the top.

Maybe,I'm still a furniture maker.......we'll see

[scottgus]

It'll always work out, Erminio. Keep the faith, bro...

[navigator7]

I am not allowed under my commercial liability policy to make children's furniture or bar stools.

It seems like your insurance policy is discriminating against droolers?
There ought to be a law!!!! ;-)

I'm shaking my head at your potential loss of revenue because of an outside agency limits your world.
You are denied the chance to kill babies and drunks for profit!
It is possible, you as a soul proprietorship, would manufacture subpar and dangerous products to kill babies and drunks for profit????
I think not!
In fact, as a consumer, I would seek people like you precisely because you have a stake in the success of the product.

As a crane service provider, my insurance company expressly forbid me to work on apartments.
So ... I asked ... If the apartment is under construction, is it an apartment?
Yes or no?
Answer: NO! Whoopie! That means I can provide services.
Is the definition of an apartment a structure where people are actually living?
Answer: Yes?
Sad.
But then.... Would I be willing to hoist something really really heavy over the lives of people residing underneath my hook? Heck No!

When Common Sense Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Have Common Sense!

As the unwilling safety officer of multi-million dollar subsea cable laying company, I was assigned the duties of replacing a four legged, ultra heavy duty, quality built, old time secretary chair. It seems OSHA had fined us for utilizing a "four legged" chair on rollers instead of the "five legged chair" on rollers now required by "law"! The fines exceeded the new value of the "new five legged legal chair" by about four or five times. The old chair was a work of art. Very near old as me! It was a quality piece doing a super job. It supported our rather ..... Shall we say ... "robust" but efficient secretary?
Over the years the old chair supported her dynamic loads without fail! A fella like me was in awe of its quality and efficiency!

Sending the disgraced illegal chair to the dump reminded me of what Hitler did to the Jews.

In order to keep my job, I go through the Granger catalog and McMaster Carr and select what I consider the best value for our dollar ... considering we have a "VERY EFFICIENT" secretary.

It arrives. I assemble it. Decals ... stickers and all sorts of OSHA legal gobbledegook must be removed by serious deadly force.
Regardless.....the new chair is a POS! I tell my superiors. They shrug.
I build the POS, present our efficient secretary with the fruit of my endeavor.
Keep in mind there are stickers that say this chair meets government standards for this and that.
Primarily, it has five supporting legs instead of four....for which we were seriously fined.
I bought what I considered the best of the best.
The new chair sure looks pretty!
Representatives from purchasing, payables, receivables, the CFO and the president of the company appear to acknowledge our failure in the eyes of our government minders ... but our retribution in the form of this brand new OSHA approved hooky POS secretary chair with five legs!

Let's call her Sue. No pun intended.

Sue, our very efficient secretary, sits down in this government approved contraption and physics takes hold immediately.
My take on time, speed and the destruction of OSHA approved POS rubber stamped political BS is distorted through previous experience. Let's call it ... a moment. A moment passed and all hell broke loose! Those of us standing are rewarded with the North bound view of South bound employee. Legs agape, panties exposed and an abundance of feminine expeltives. Sue impacts the floor like three bags of Portland cement. That is putting it politely. Pre-mix concrete has no vocal cords and weighs about 90 pounds each.

The point of all this is....we'd all be better off if The Free Market, my company .... not government decided upon which type of chair best suits Sue!!!!!


SO!!!!!! Because your insurance company denies you insurance for making children's toys and bar stools.....I believe you would be the best. You insurance company is being beaten down by the same agency that beat us!

I fixed our dilemma with some nanny state unapproved gussets and tack welds.

What if you renamed your business: Children's Barstool Furniture?

[pyrodenis]

Wow, an opp to complain about insurance!
Let the kids play on the floor; but, bar stools? indispensible!

In this financial environment, I think that the sales strategy in the insurance industry is not new customers, but the upsell. They are out there looking for anything they can wrap an excuse around.

I was a furnituremaker and antique restorer, until 25 years ago, a seismic shift led me into the strange world of fireworks productions. I now own a small, niche fireworks company. Suffice it to say, importing, transporting, and detonating HazMat is a compliance and insurance challenge. I've had No Losses.

Nine years ago my (then) ins agent in Texas was arrested for "fraud", in some dealings, outside of the consortium of pyro companies he put together for coverage. The excess carrier for that corsortium, AIG (sorry for the profanity in this noble forum), seized on the opportunity to cancel all policies.....12 days before July 4th! (Maybe I should write that again....ok, no.) Of course, the million dollar premium payers in the consortium were a credible threat and were reinstated; the rest of us had to either pay through the nose, last minute, to other carriers (who, I'm sure collectively had written a novel under the pen name "Bram Stoker") ...who were only too happy to help. In most cases, though, we had to approach our clients for relief from our contracts requirements on excess/umbrella's. This scared some of them away from our companies for the following season.

After our horrible World Trade Center tragedy, the insurance companies had to recover, and targeted their highest premiums.....HazMat businesses.

It goes on, now, aimed at all businesses, everywhere; there is so much of a scramble now. In Big business, the justification seems to be "our obligation is to our shareholders, not a moral or ethical code." Small business owners draw those lines closer to home.

I'm looking forward to the transition back to wood..... with my BOT. But, it seems there's no escaping the underwriters.

Oh, where has the time gone? (I guess I haven't cried in a long time.) I have a show tomorrow, and a big premium to pay!