We have our house insurance with the AA and it’s not a problem. We told them I work at home doing art and that I sell online. They said they would treat it like a clerical business. I don’t use any solvents or keep anything flammable in the house and I don’t have people coming to the house to buy anything.
Shop around till you find one that can help. It might be cheaper elsewhere too
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Having worked in insurance, I can say that it is best to declare precisely what you do (and where you do it) when you are asking for a quote. Once they have agreed to insure you they cannot go back on it if you have previously disclosed the risk. If they have “forgotten” that you have disclosed it, threaten them with a complaint to the Insurance Ombudsman Service and that should spring some doors open. Unfortunately insurers can dictate terms as they wish for home insurance and so there may be some companies that do not insure the homes of crafters, some who will under certain circumstances and some who will accept the whole of the risk. I think that it is very likely that insurers are wise to the number of craft businesses that have sprung up and on the whole, the companies will be familiar with the concept of an artist who does not “paint.” However, some of the members of staff I worked with were not particularly interested or educated in the arts (beyond the latest Avengers movie) and you may have come across somebody like that @JOYSofGLASS!
Sam x
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The problem I encountered was not really the artist / painting bit. It was the complete refusal to insure anyone at all making anything at all. I suggested to one man I spoke to that I might simply be making pompoms and that even that was a banned activity and he agreed with me. He said it was ok if I was just doing clerical things and I could even have visitors to my home office. I suggested that a visitor could trip and sue me !
Didn’t get me anywhere with him though and nor did it get me insurance.
I sent an explanatory email to the Country Markets today, of which I am a producing member. Will be interested in the response. Don’t imagine for one minute that more than 1% of the members, who make all sorts of things at home, have ever ticked that business from home box on their home insurance…
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My hubby dealt with our house insurance last time around, and ended up with Admiral. They seemed to be most concerned about “did customers come to the house”, and “was there any expensive equipment involved”, which both could be construed as increasing risk of a break-in I suppose. There are probably a lot of people who have never even considered that what they are doing affects their house insurance.
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Totally understand your point of view, @JOYSofGLASS. It’s just that insurers each make their own rules about which risks they want to cover and there is nothing any of us can do to change their minds. They may have decided to leave the risk of insuring crafters to other companies because they do not have enough data to accurately underwrite the policies. If Admiral feel that they want our business, on the other hand, then we will all inevitably end up insured with them, which in turn will give them plenty of the data regarding value of claims that they need.
Sam X
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There is another way of Looking at this. Are insurers discriminating against people who work from home who are wanting to insure their home and contents ?
I take it that most folks running a business from home are only looking for the same level of home and contents cover that folks who leave home every day for work want. The fact that some of us work from home should make no difference imho.
Business insurance would normally be covered by a seperate policy covering the specific needs of the business. Therefore business activities shouldn’t affect the risk to home and contents insurers.
Thanks to Joy for bringing this important issue to our attention.
Dave and Dos
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LV do seem to have got their knickers in a twist over this. The Go Compare website has some guidelines. In a nutshell they have determined three categories of home working: clerical, home working that involves business visitors and other. Other seems to include making things and having a workshop, but they recommend taking out separate insurance to cover stock and materials, which some home insurance providers do not cover. They could refuse to cover your stock, which isn’t the same as a refusal to offer general home cover. As @Dosrodgerspottery pointed out, all we really want is the same kind of home cover that anyone would want.
When I took out my Admiral home cover, they only wanted to know my main occupation, which is self-employed taxi driver. I do not consider selling the odd painting to be my main occupation at this point, much as I’d like it to be. They were quite happy to offer me home cover as a self-employed person who is based at my home address and holding cash overnight, provided punters did not visit my house (which they don’t).
If you take LV’s logic to its conclusion, anyone who has ever sold anything on Ebay would have invalidated their home insurance.
Link to the Go Compare article.
https://www.gocompare.com/home-insurance/working-from-home/#other-business
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Insurance is by its very nature discriminatory. What is little known outside of the industry is that the underwriting departments of different companies do have unofficial agreements called “Memorandums of Understanding” where they may agree to be the main insurer for a particular type of risk and the other companies agree not to compete. This may be what is happening here as it is a bit suspicious that Admiral appear so willing to accept business from crafters.
Sam x
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Admiral have a drop down list of types of business. Not specifically crafters but lots of other things as well.
LV and Lloyds don’t get that far… they just say no to any productive process (childminding / clerical is acceptable).
Believe NFU Mutual will do it.
Stupid thing is that I was not asking to insure any part of my business. I simply wanted to insure my house but to be honest about the fact I am running a business from home to enusre my cover was valid.
I really don’t understand what it is that they consider a ‘risk’ about someone working from home especially as the refusal comes right up front and before you have any opportunity to detail your business activities whether risky or not.
Certainly less risk of my house being burgled than any of my neighbours as I’m in the garage, husband’s in the house all day while neighbours are away from home working.
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Same here! Although I was using the word “risk” as sort of insurance jargon. Everybody is a “risk” as far as an insurance company is concerned. Their business is to take the premiums and then exclude as many claims as possible.
Sam x
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My house insurance is with Aviva, and they didn’t have a problem with me running my business from home, as long as they knew about it. The home policy only covers your stock/materials below a certain value, but otherwise they didn’t seem to have an issue.
As Joy says, if you’re at home most of the time, the risks should really be lower.
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