My husband is doing the house insurance and decided to ask what difference it makes if he says I make my glass creations in the garage.
He didn’t ask our current insurer (as he wants to change as they’ve put our contents rate up by 33% despite no claim since the year dot).
The company he asked said NO they won’t insure us because I make something at home which I sell for money ! The woman checked twice but came back and said no and the original ‘sans travail’ quote has been deleted.
Now I make for Country Markets so that rule would preclude every single country marketer from having insurance as most make cakes which they sell.
Am I going slightly mad or is the world or can someone tell me what they do.
PS: There is less chance of my garage burning down through my glass making than via an exploding washing machine or tumble dryer which are also in there. The garage if it burned down would not burn the house down as it is at the bottom of the garden.
Thanks for that. I do have my own public liability insurance but this was a flat refusal just because I make and sell… even though he told the woman on the phone I am HMRC officially registered as a Hobbyist Glass Artist not exactly a manufacturing premises !
I’ve called LV= back. Yes they come up on Money Supermarket .com as providing business cover for home insurance but that appears to be a lie.
If you work from home typing or things like that you may get away with it but if you make and then sell they will not insure you… their underwriters say NO. So if you are insured with LV= I think you might be advised to read the small print.
I’ve just added a suitably worded comment to their FB page and will also tweet it later.
PS Admiral will allow me to be an artist and even insure my equipment (though not my stock but I wasn’t asking them to)
Sasha
Have been having quite a heated discussion on the LV= page as they have replied to my post on there.
I just found this when I partially filled in an application on line (I used fictitious details !) and got to the do you run a business from home.
You’ve told us that your home is used for business purposes.
We’ll offer cover, provided that::
Only one room is used
No staff work from your home
Nothing is sold, manufactured, repaired or restored from your home
Have to say that that would exclude anyone with a Folksy shop and most people on Ebay and everyone from Country Markets and most people at any craft event I’ve ever been to … so if you’re insured with LV beware !
Off to find out who the underwriters are.
They have now by the way said
“Hi Joy, I have just checked and aslong as the paintings are not being sold from your property and money is not being exchanged at your home we can cover for this you. Kind regards Rachel”
The funny, or really more worrying, thing is that I said I was an Artist. Do they know that Artist does not just mean painting ?
I have responded
I sell my glass art (Artist does not just mean painting !) via the internet. I do not sell it directly from my house. Payment is also online so money is not exchanged on the doorstep.
I believe that someone in your company needs to take a very good look at the statement I just copy / pasted in above and perhaps apply some intelligent thoughts to it.
Certainly I am worried that you think Artist = Painter !
Google says underwriter is " Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Ltd."*
Google also says underwriter for Admiral is Admiral Financial Services Limited
@folksycontent wonder if you have any thoughts on home insurance issues.
I wonder what they mean by money being exchanged “at your home”. In theory, money from online sales is exchanged in cyber space.
I have an Admiral policy. I work from home in my day job and as long as I don’t receive members of the public into my home, I am covered. I assumed this would extend to painting my pictures and selling them at fairs, galleries or online! Perhaps I should check the small print (assuming it makes any sense),
I really think that this is just a case of very bad policy writing. T
hat it really means you are not allowed to use your insured home as a ‘shop’ where members of the public come to your door to collect / pay money but it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say that at all
And whatever is does say is being interpreted by their staff as meaning nothing can be made, modified, fixed…!!
Funny thing is the man I spoke to said I could have people to the house (as long as I didn’t make anything ). I suggested that would be far more risky as they might trip and sue me !
Imagine say if you mend watches as an occasional hobby and you take a tiny payment for doing so. Sitting in your front room in front of the TV enjoying yourself doing what you like to do…only to find that that invalidated your home insurance, after your house flooded, burned down.
I’ve reported them to Moneysupermarket.com on FB and I think they will check it out.
Will probably go to Admiral unless when Bob checks with our current insurers they give a more reasonable quote.
I had exactly the same problem when I renewed my home insurance a few months ago.
After a lot of searching, I found NFU Mutual were willing to cover what I do from home (make jewellery in a summer house at the bottom of my garden). I made it clear to them that I didn’t want business insurance (I have a craft insurance policy in place) only that I was declaring I made jewellery from the address I wanted to insure and to ensure that my policy covered that.
It did and the price was fine (as far as any insurance price can be fine nowadays!).
I think this is a potential major issue for crafters so would be good to know of anyone else has has any issues, good or bad. Has anyone claimed on their house insurance and been questioned about their Folksy shop???
I know when I was trying to obtain online quotes for insurance, the minute I answered the question ‘Do you work from home?’ I was told I couldn’t proceed online and was given a number to call.
They are definitely onto craft based businesses so I would imagine that they would most certainly ask if a claim was made.
The silly thing with LV was that my husband actually called as it was objecting to our having oil central heating. It was when he called that they told him they wouldn’t insure if you, in the business, actually made something and sold it. Crazy. I thought he had mis heard so called myself and got the same stupid story.
I tried to raise this issue via a BBC consumer programme the other year but nothing happened. There must be thousands of folks like us, making stuff at home and selling their wares. The insurance market needs to catch up.
As previously mentioned NFU do have a homeowners and working from home policy. We used them for years. We are currently using Nationwide as our home insurers who are fully aware of our business from home activities so maybe try them.
Thank you. I have made quite a fuss on the LV= FB page and suggested they should apply some intelligent thinking to the wording of their policy. The problem is that insurance policies are all about exact use of words and they can ‘get you’ (i.e leave you unexpectedly uninsured) on that basis … which is why I pedantically objected to the FB woman who referred to my paintings just because I said I was an artist !
This is really interesting and not something I was aware of - thanks for flagging it up, @JOYSofGLASS.
It’s definitely worth looking into more closely and I’ll see if we can get some information together around it for other sellers.
If other people could let us know their experiences too and the insurance companies’ responses, that would be really useful.
Thanks Camilla. It seems that the insurance people who write the spiel don’t understand the difference between making something in a workshop at home and having customers come to the door to buy it, like a B&M shop
and people like us… who sell on line .
About time they did !!
Earlier this year I had to renew my house insurance and I had to spend nearly an hour on the phone to my company to persuade them that I wasn’t a major manufacturer…it even got down to How much did your paint brushes cost…what paints to do you use and how much are they worth…
Even telling them that I was a pensioner just painting to stop me going senile , didn;t help…lol…
they had never heard of PIN money…
It can be a minefield…I did eventually get the “OK” from them but it took a lot of explaining.
I found the whole thing ludicrous, especially when I consider friends who buy and sell on the auction site as well as holding down full time jobs.
My accountant is now trying to get HMRC to allow me to stop filling in self assessment forms, especially as I am just on a pension…I live in hope.
Well - sorted - but that took a minute.
Last night I did an anonymous online quote with (now old) current insurers. Lloyds. It said NO.
Having first of all rechecked that Admiral will insure us, Bob called Lloyds and asked about the business cover. A big fat NO.
Not only that they cancelled our policy with immediate (they agreed up to midnight) effect.
We now have a new policy with Admiral and that does give Business Cover (I’m an ‘artist’).
I can’t decide why the insurance companies are doing this. :
So that if anyone who has not ticked the business box makes a claim they can say they’re not insured
So they can persuade you to take out a far more expensive business insurance (Don’t think that was an option with LV but could well be with Lloyds)
Pure ignorance of the modern world and if that is the case they have no right to be offering imsurance
