To insure or not to insure? Many artists and crafters have a difficult time making this decision. Is it necessary? Will it be helpful down the road? This month's article takes a look at these questions, answered by the insurance experts.

Keep in mind that we're always looking for new and helpful topics to cover in newsletters. If you have any ideas for topics, or would like to write an article yourself, let us know!

Happy crafting!
Jackie
FNO Newsletter Editor

Why Liability Insurance Brings You Peace of Mind.
by the ACT Insurance Program writing team at actinspro.com

As an insurance team who works with artists & crafters every day, we understand that insurance may be not the first thing you worry about in your arts & crafts business. Nevertheless, we did research about what kind of questions artists & crafters are asking regarding liability insurance for their business. We discovered that this is a very popular topic among artisans, undoubtedly because it touches their business directly. Why is that? General Liability insurance, also known as business liability insurance or commercial general liability insurance, is what gives you peace of mind.

There are many types of insurance you may need for your arts & crafts vendor business, but as a vendor you will need liability insurance for sure! Liability insurance protects the insured if he or she is determined responsible for damage to someone else's property or bodily injury to a person that is caused by negligence or acts of omission during performance of his or her duties or business.

Even if you don't feel you are a huge liability factor, it's important to be prepared for any incident. As an experienced team who sees insurance claims every day, we can say that accidents may, and likely will, happen wholly unexpectedly. Let's say you are vending at a festival and your client slips and falls in your tent. Or while preparing your work for exhibition you accidentally touch someone else's work, like a piece of pottery for example, and break it. In both cases you can be required to pay medical bills for physical injury to a person or pay for damage to a pottery piece. So, liability insurance is what saves you money in case of a lawsuit.

Let's then take a deeper look into some very important liability insurance questions that artists & crafters deal with.

We've had many phone calls and emails regarding liability insurance for shows, fairs and festivals. Being insured may be a requirement of arts and crafts shows at which you are exhibiting, so be prepared for that! Usually, those events require an insurance policy that covers not only the art or craft vendor and his business, but also the event's name and location. This is a common request and it's called having the event as an "additional insured."

Additional insureds can be a person or an organization. What happens with additional insureds is you extend your policy coverage to protect the additional insured from a lawsuit that was caused by your negligence.

Are additional insureds available for no charge? The answer is "Yes" and "No." Some insurance companies will charge you, and with others there is no cost. Verify this with your insurance company.

Also, we found many discussions on forums about "Inland Marine" coverage. Do you know what Inland Marine insurance means? It is a type of property insurance that covers your goods while at a show, temporary location or while being transported on the vehicle. You should also check with your insurance agency about what options you have for limit of insurance available for inland marine coverage.

The most popular questions are where to buy insurance and how much it costs. It depends on the policies offered. There is a big variety of liability insurance policies offered by insurance companies. They start from a one-day policy and go up to a 6 or 12 month (annual) policy. You can also find policies that offer coverage by number of events.

If you compare liability coverage for arts & crafts businesses to homeowners insurance policies, it is relatively inexpensive and you can find places where it's easy to buy online and get a certificate immediately.

First, you can contact your existing insurance company to see if they provide such coverage and what price they can offer for you, and then compare policies offered by other insurance agencies and special programs. Also be aware that some companies require membership in order to purchase insurance.

When buying liability insurance, compare rates carefully before choosing a policy and make sure you have plenty of liability insurance to cover lawyers and settlement costs, and you'll be fine.

Article provided by:

ACT Insurance Program team.

ACT Insurance Program (ACTinsPRO) offers general & product liability insurance for artists & crafters that can be purchased online at http://www.actinspro.com.

The Program is designed and managed by Veracity Insurance Solutions, LLC, an expert and leader in the commercial liability industry with over 30 years of experience.

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