Newbie insurance?

[shine]

Hi, everyone's input has been very helpful in helping me get started making candles. My next step is to find out what I need to do to sell them. My mother-n-law informed me that to sell your own candles in Illinois you must first have insurance. Is this right or is insurance just a good idea? If you do need insurance, what type? Thanks for all your help:cheesy2:

[MochaMama]

I sell bath and body, but I have insurance. I believe it is from RLI and I got mine from a broker. If you run a search for "insurance" in this forum, you will find lots of threads with different people's opinions and options on the matter.

Good Luck!!

[shine]

thanks for your reply. I'll do the search:)

[CC on Maui]

Aloha Shine,

You'll find that RLI doesn't cover candles.

Not sure where your MIL got her information, but I would check with your state/city/municipality -- whoever governs commerce or business licenses for your area.

The bottom line is that any company -- regardless of the product you sell -- should have General Liablity insurance (this is a commercial policy) in place before their first transaction. It's simply good business.

Candlemakers insurance can be difficult to find, and can be very costly. You'll do best to begin by calling an Insurance Broker from your yellow pages and explain what you are doing, and that you are looking for a Commercial General Liability policy. You may go through a number of brokers before you find one even willing to talk to you.

In the meanwhile, you might want to check out the insurance that is now available through www.soapguild.org. I switched policies when it became available, and it's saving me over $2K annually in premiums. (I make candles and B&B products).

You probably will want to do some searches under "insurance" on this board, too. This is a topic that is discussed frequently.

Good Luck!

[bravo5]

Ohio Arts and Crafts Guild has a policy available to guild members, but only for a few states- and Illinois is one of them. However, the guild is going through some changes due to the death of the woman that ran the office, so it may be hard to get in touch with someone there for awhile.

http://www.ohioartsandcraftsguild.org/

http://www.benchmarkinsurance.com/OACG%2006-07.pdf

Also, I did hear that you can join the Handmade Beauty Network if you only make candles- I can't verify this. They have a new insurance program as well.

http://www.handmadebeauty.com/

[shine]

Thanks for the info. I just dropped off some tester candles to a friend that works at an insurance company. They are actually going to test them in their office. They said they have insured people who sell Gold Canyon candles but not someone who makes their own candles. He said he'd look into it but thought I probably would need product liability. Any ideas?

[CC on Maui]

A good commercial GL quote will usually include product libility. Be sure you ask the insurance agent to include it in your quote.

[bravo5]

Shine- since you don't have access to PM yet, I sent you an email.