[LeeWay]

That $500 may be a decent deal depending on how much you financed it for. Did you get the 1100? If so, that is probably double what I paid for the Torus. I think it was between 7 and 8 thousand delivered. I pay about $300 a year in insurance.

Here is the company that has my policy for the Torus and now the same policy on the Pulsar.
Great American Insurance Group - Welcome - Property Casualty | Annuities

They should be able to get you a quote pretty easily. I guess that is.... The finance company secured the policy for me and I never knew the name until I had to file the claim.
Good luck with it.

[cadguy247]

That $500 may be a decent deal depending on how much you financed it for. Did you get the 1100? If so, that is probably double what I paid for the Torus. I think it was between 7 and 8 thousand delivered. I pay about $300 a year in insurance.

Here is the company that has my policy for the Torus and now the same policy on the Pulsar.
Great American Insurance Group - Welcome - Property Casualty | Annuities

They should be able to get you a quote pretty easily. I guess that is.... The finance company secured the policy for me and I never knew the name until I had to file the claim.
Good luck with it.

what is the actual name of the coverage you have? that's where it gets confusing, each one seems to have a different idea of what type of coverage I need, and I have no clue. all I know is that the bank needs to be named as the lienholder as they would be on a car or mortgage. you really wouldn't think this would be this complicated, but I guess that somehow insurance companies can complicate everything

[LeeWay]

The finance company actually holds the policy itself. I had to go through them first to initiate the claim.

What I received was an outline of the coverage and cost.
It was for repair or replace.
Covered items include,
Accidental damage
Burglary, theft, and robbery
Employee theft
Fire
Flood and water
Lightning and power surge
Vandalism
Wind, hurricame and tornado

Types of equipment not covered include,
aircraft
watercraft
automobiles
and equipment used under ground
underwater in mining
logging
lumbering
oil or gas exploration or processing

The coverage itself is called combined coverage.

[cadguy247]

Maybe I'm having such a tough time because I live in Massachusetts, everything is a chore in this F'n state...

[mountaindew]

insurance has to be the most screwed up, corrupt in industry there is. So far quotes range from $500 a year to $2500 for the same coverage, the Hartford being the cheapest, however they won't call back or email until you hound them 5-6 times each time so I still don't have a policy yet....

Wow!
My home owners covers my home with everything in it for about 3x more and I think it is way out of line because property crime where I live is as high as Detroit. I have relatives that live 150 miles away in a lower crime city and their insurance cost is about the same for homes that are 3x bigger and 3x more $ coverage of contents.
I think that is crazy high but then again Hartford insures me so I cant offer any other insight!
md

[LeeWay]

Just a side note. I turned my old smaller shop back into a woodworking shop for hobby use and home maintenance only.
My home owners policy does cover that shop and it's contents up to $10,000. I could of course increase that if I wanted at a higher premium. There is zero coverage on my new shop because it is a business location. It must have it's own small business insurance.

[LeeWay]

Just a side note. I turned my old smaller shop back into a woodworking shop for hobby use and home maintenance only.
My home owners policy does cover that shop and it's contents up to $10,000. I could of course increase that if I wanted at a higher premium. There is zero coverage on y new shop because it is a business location. It must have it's own small business insurance.

[cadguy247]

I will hopefully be insured on Monday through The Hartford, but that in itself is a whole other story. Apparently they are the cheapest but also have the worst customer service if dealing with them directly. But I will be going through a local agent, paying a couple hundred bucks more but that is fine with me as customer service goes a long way with me.

Thank you everyone for your help, and if all goes well my next posts will be machine related questions only, very excited to get this thing going

[LeeWay]

That is good to hear. I hope that you are absolutely wasting your money on insurance and never need it. I look forward to reading about your projects in the future.
Have fun with it.

[JohnToner]

Generally, products liability attaches when the product fails to function as intended resulting in injury, personnel or pecuniary. As the manufacturer of the part, and if you caused the defect which caused the injury, you are liable. Even the manufacturer of the metal could be found liable if the material had a defect which resulted in the injury. As a practical matter, a plaintiff will name everybody in the chain of commerce, but their sights will be set on whomever has the deepest pockets. If your customer has deep pockets, he will be the target because he either knew, or should have know through due diligence, that your component was defective. Of course, if found liable, he will likely seek indemnification from you. As mentioned above, your million $$ insurance will leave you holding the bag for the remaining 24 million.

[cadguy247]

this whole insurance thing is a scam, I got dropped by the Hartford and denied by several other companies because of product liability, which I wasn't even trying to get product liability insurance, they just insisted that I needed it even though I don't have an actual product. in fact, the main portion of my business is injection mold design. I tried explaining the whole process to these morons that work for the insurance companies, but they have no clue what it is I actually do, they hear injection molding and think that I am liable if a medical device fails and kills someone. I tell them, you cant sue craftsman because a carpenter does a crappy job on your addition correct? and they agree, and I tell them it's the same thing. I design a mold for them, the part design and mold are specified by my customer and they sign off on my design so there is no liability, and they insist I'm wrong, in the history of mold making no mold designer has ever been sued because a product failed in the field , worse that happens if I screw up is I don't get paid and I lose that customers future business,

So I short, every aspect of the insurance industry is crooked and needs to be governed more closely by the government

in the end I was able to find a company that would give me property insurance only, and that is all I really need. however, I truly don't know how some small (I'm a one man business) can even get by these days.

[compunerdy]

Please share who you finally got insured by. I ran into the same issue with most companies wanting to do all or nothing type of insurance when all I wanted was to insure the machines/inventory.

[cadguy247]

Please share who you finally got insured by. I ran into the same issue with most companies wanting to do all or nothing type of insurance when all I wanted was to insure the machines/inventory.

the broker is local to me, but the actual insurance company is United States Liability Ins Co.

the whole reason I got declined by everyone for general liability is that fact that I am a designer, not sure how the rest of the designers out there get by, maybe they don't have insurance if they are a design only company. If I had told them I was a job shop, I would have been covered. If it ever comes to the point where I need actual liability then I will make up another company name, have NO website so that they cannot find out what I do.

[CNC-Dude]

Ahhh the insurance nightmare! In 2007 I did a lease to acquire a laser engraver. As a requirement, I was too asked to get some insurance. Completely oblivious to what this meant, I started calling agencies and to my surprise, the first guy I called from Statefarm found some way to insure this mess for something like $500 and some change a year. Definitely less than $600. As soon as I paid the lease, I cancelled the insurance.

Then in 2012 I wanted to get me a CNC plasma cutter. Since the lease had been such an awesome experience I gave this venue a try. ERRRR!!! Big Mistake! I called my home insurance agency thinking they were going to be able to help as easily as before and WHAMMO! I am told that my insurance will be cancelled at the end of the term. Why? Well of course because a Plasma Cutter can be used to split the planet in half and who would want to deal with such a mess?

I ended up canning the lease idea and bought the darned thing cash. I am still trying to recover from such a moronic move. If I had a time machine I would go back and punch my younger self in the face and forbid him from spending such large amount of cash on such overpriced piece of equipment. But that is not what this topic is about...

I wish you all good luck with any further insurance search...

[cadguy247]

yeah, I can almost guarantee that my home owners will drop me come November since they know and they already tried to drop me once before.

Funny how that works, I'm required by law to have insurance, no one will insure me except a state run plan at $3500 a year which is 3x the cost that I pay now. Now if that isn't a monopoly...

Had I known ahead of time I would have just said I was a job shop, so if anyone else ever runs into this situation, that's what I'd suggest. you're a job shop and DONT have a website up at the time, or at least dumb down what you do on the site as they will check it

[CNC-Dude]

Another important data point which I missed. I just kept on thinking about this and came into a realization which may easily be a life changer for whoever gives this a try.

When I did the lease for the laser I was living in an apartment (yes, an apartment!!!) so there was no home insurance. As a result, the agency I found was only looking to help me with a business insurance policy. There was no way to kick me out of a policy because, hey, there was no such a thing!

When I went for the CNC Plasma cutter insurance, I had already moved to a house. This is the missing link! I was now asking for a business policy but already had a "butt kickable" home insurance policy.

So a possibility here is to not go to your home insurance agency but a completely different agency. Have one home insurance for your home (DUH!) and then a second business insurance for your garage and your garage's content. Now, whether this is inflicting on some law or not, I have no idea. If the second agency needs to contact the first agency, I have no idea. I imagine it is possible this might not work because the business insurance agency may need to call the home owners insurance agency and that will wipe out everything else. I don't know. But rest assured that if you get your home insurance involved, they are going to assume your plan is to wipe out the solar system and they will decide to play it safe.

What we need here is a series of developers to build houses for geeks! The home has an address and then there is a corridor which connects to your massive garage which has a second address. This way you can have a home insurance for your house and a business insurance for your garage. WHAMMO! PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

OK, I am going to call it! GEEK-PARK, heh heh he. Or because this is going to be in Texas, maybe we will call it GEEK's CREEK. Or Nerditown... I don't know. So many choices!

[cadguy247]

Another important data point which I missed. I just kept on thinking about this and came into a realization which may easily be a life changer for whoever gives this a try.

When I did the lease for the laser I was living in an apartment (yes, an apartment!!!) so there was no home insurance. As a result, the agency I found was only looking to help me with a business insurance policy. There was no way to kick me out of a policy because, hey, there was no such a thing!

When I went for the CNC Plasma cutter insurance, I had already moved to a house. This is the missing link! I was now asking for a business policy but already had a "butt kickable" home insurance policy.

So a possibility here is to not go to your home insurance agency but a completely different agency. Have one home insurance for your home (DUH!) and then a second business insurance for your garage and your garage's content. Now, whether this is inflicting on some law or not, I have no idea. If the second agency needs to contact the first agency, I have no idea. I imagine it is possible this might not work because the business insurance agency may need to call the home owners insurance agency and that will wipe out everything else. I don't know. But rest assured that if you get your home insurance involved, they are going to assume your plan is to wipe out the solar system and they will decide to play it safe.

What we need here is a series of developers to build houses for geeks! The home has an address and then there is a corridor which connects to your massive garage which has a second address. This way you can have a home insurance for your house and a business insurance for your garage. WHAMMO! PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

OK, I am going to call it! GEEK-PARK, heh heh he. Or because this is going to be in Texas, maybe we will call it GEEK's CREEK. Or Nerditown... I don't know. So many choices!

Tried that, didn't work. Problem was that if you use brokers, they try multiple places and of course don't tell you which ones. So one of the brokers tried my home owners insurance company, so now they know...

[smokediver576]

So...... As an individual who works from home, this topic has scared the #$%^ out of me. Right now I do not have any of my business equipment or materials insured, nor am I looking to insure them. It's a risk that I'm willing to take since all of its paid for and no bank is asking me to insure them. Fortunately I have the funds to self insure my equipment. Most of my work is consulting to other companies within my industry, however I also manufacture some products that I sell. I have no employees and all deliveries/pickups are done away from my home. Basically it's just me. I use 100% of my basement and about 75% of my garage. Right now my insurance company has not ask nor have they been out to do any sort of inspection, however now I'm playing the "what if" game. So with that said, I've got a few questions:

(1) Those of you who work from home (without employees or customers who come to the house) does your insurance company know and if so how was that handled?

(2) Is there any insurance company who specialize in insuring ones home for people who operate a home based business? Rates??

(3) If my company cancels my policy, will they give me a chance to move the business off site and re-instate the insurance policy?

(4) If something happens, can they deny the claim?

(5) In this day in time with the downturn in the economy I cannot help but feel there are a ton of folks working from home doing either Ebay sales, gun smithing, woodworking and many more!

[cadguy247]

So...... As an individual who works from home, this topic has scared the #$%^ out of me. Right now I do not have any of my business equipment or materials insured, nor am I looking to insure them. It's a risk that I'm willing to take since all of its paid for and no bank is asking me to insure them. Fortunately I have the funds to self insure my equipment. Most of my work is consulting to other companies within my industry, however I also manufacture some products that I sell. I have no employees and all deliveries/pickups are done away from my home. Basically it's just me. I use 100% of my basement and about 75% of my garage. Right now my insurance company has not ask nor have they been out to do any sort of inspection, however now I'm playing the "what if" game. So with that said, I've got a few questions:

(1) Those of you who work from home (without employees or customers who come to the house) does your insurance company know and if so how was that handled?

(2) Is there any insurance company who specialize in insuring ones home for people who operate a home based business? Rates??

(3) If my company cancels my policy, will they give me a chance to move the business off site and re-instate the insurance policy?

(4) If something happens, can they deny the claim?

(5) In this day in time with the downturn in the economy I cannot help but feel there are a ton of folks working from home doing either Ebay sales, gun smithing, woodworking and many more!

I'd love to know these answers as well. basically I feel like I paid $650 just to keep the bank happy, awfully worried about what if the worst happened

[smokediver576]

I'd love to know these answers as well. basically I feel like I paid $650 just to keep the bank happy, awfully worried about what if the worst happened

Sort of my concern as well. Your $650 just covered the machine but what about the house?