Public liability insurance for craft microbusiness

pinkteapot

I make greeting cards and sell at the occasional craft fair. I only make a few hundred pounds a year - it's a tiny hobby thing. (Don't worry - I do my tax returns and HMRC know all about it!)

Some craft fairs ask to see a public liability insurance certificate before you can book a table with them. I'll be honest - I haven't bothered with PL insurance to date, due to the cost vs the size of my takings, but I should probably get it and I'll have to raise my prices accordingly.

The cheapest I've found so far is £48:
http://www.cmtia.co.uk/

Does anyone know this market and know of anywhere cheaper? £48 is still a lot for the size of my business, but I'm guessing that may well be as cheap as it gets.

InsideInsurance

Have you looked to see if there are any crafters societies/ associations that include free cover as part of their subscriptions? Would probably be more in cost but inevitably you will get other things with it.

Do you just need Public Liability or also Product Liability? Many SME products bundle the two together but some do sell just straight PL and so it wouldnt cover you should someone decide to sue you because their kid choked on something that came unstuck from a card or a papercut etc.

Quentin

pinkteapot wrote: »

The cheapest I've found so far is £48:
http://www.cmtia.co.uk/

Does anyone know this market and know of anywhere cheaper? £48 is still a lot for the size of my business, but I'm guessing that may well be as cheap as it gets.

You could get it a little cheaper (currently £36/year) here (not a recommendation):


http://www.a-n.co.uk/about/insurance

marlot

Our house insurance really went through the roof when my wife started running card making classes at home. It cost way more than the money it brought in, and eventually became too much for her fledgling business to bear.

Good luck finding something suitable; please post on here if you do - my wife would be very interested.

pinkteapot

Thanks all.

InsideInsurance - good suggestion! I'll look around at societies etc. I wasn't fussed about product liability but it does seem to be bundled with most of the policies I've seen so far, so I might as well have it.

Quentin - thanks for the link - I'll look at their policy. Honestly, I think the odds of my claiming are so utterly remote that I'm less worried about the quality than I am for things like home insurance (where we pay for a premium product).

marlot - I hadn't thought to mention it to our house insurers. :eek: All I'm doing at home is making cards, and I started out just selling a handful to people at work. I now sell the odd one online and some at craft fairs. I'll need to check our policy wording re running a business from the home, but I don't have the public coming round. Hope it doesn't impact or it's not going to be worth me carrying on. I do it more because I enjoy doing it than for the money, which really is just pocket money.

I'll let you know what I end up doing.

lovinituk

Try the market traders federation (NMTF) for PL insurance although the 2 prices mentioned above are pretty good.

lovinituk

marlot wrote: »

Our house insurance really went through the roof when my wife started running card making classes at home. It cost way more than the money it brought in, and eventually became too much for her fledgling business to bear.

Good luck finding something suitable; please post on here if you do - my wife would be very interested.

That's because you had members of public coming in to your house which is always going to massively affect any insurance premiums.