Business insurance

[Brian Turner]

The bank finally realised that I don't have business insurance, and decided to push the issue. I figured it was worth looking into...but when the sales team called today, as soon as they realised I offered webhosting they went cold, and with a rather disappointed tone of voice said farewell.

It's got me thinking now - is this something I really need to look into much more seriously? Especially when my liabilities seem very limited. And who actually provides business insurance for companies that offer web hosting anyway?

[JamesSmith]

Originally Posted by Brian Turner

The bank finally realised that I don't have business insurance, and decided to push the issue. I figured it was worth looking into...but when the sales team called today, as soon as they realised I offered webhosting they went cold, and with a rather disappointed tone of voice said farewell.

It's got me thinking now - is this something I really need to look into much more seriously? Especially when my liabilities seem very limited. And who actually provides business insurance for companies that offer web hosting anyway?

We have been unable to get insurance, we mention Internet related services and get told if your hosting chat rooms or forums they cant do it.

So thats errr .. virtually everyone in the hosting industry :P

Having spoken to a business advisor from the chamber of business .. he said to be quite honest you dont need it. Life insurance though would be a good idea.

[revsorg]

We had to get some hefty business insurance in order to win a particular contract. We don't do hosting, so that wasn't a problem. What I will say though is that it's definitely worth searching for a good deal. Our first quote from a local high street broker looked like it was going to cost a couple of thousand pounds, and they were having to place a special risk with an underwriter at Lloyds. Quite frankly, I don't think they knew what they were doing, but if you're new to the marketplace yourself it's hard to judge. I can't remember who we eventually went with, but it ended up costing hundreds, and fingers crossed we haven't needed it yet!

[trevHCS]

It probably depends what you're hosting and what the contract says.

For example, if you're just hosting ordinary sites and it goes off for 2 hours someone would be hard pushed to take you to the small claims court unless your contract stated you have 100% server uptime.

The best way to stay out of trouble is to have systems and spares in place so things can be fixed asap and keep anyone who asks informed of whats happening, even if you're waiting for something - that can make things a lot less likely to get nasty.

Oh and don't host on Windows based machines...

Do you run the servers yourself?
And why does the bank want to know about your insurance? (And was the bank trying to sell you their approved insurance?)

Trev

[Brian Turner]

I don't run the servers myself - I simply have lots of different reseller plans, namely for design clients.

I think the bank was trying to push something on me, but as usual I stopped the salesperson on a technicality.