Ken wrote:
Gang...
I have a house and a remote garage. All property was insured by
one Company back in 1996. Decided I would open a small business in
the remote garage doing all kinds of general repair work (woodworking,
welding, small gas engine repair, lawntractors, etc). Secured all
necessary paperwork, variances, sales tax licenses, etc., and since my
original homeowners insurance would not write a small commercial
business, I secured a separate company to write the commercial policy.
Everything fine until a couple of years went by - when I received a
cancellation notice from my home insurance company. "Because I
increased risk to their covered interests". Checked with the PA
insurance commission - Yup, they are allowed to do that (after I paid
premiums to them since 1977). Okay, had to find another insurance
company to cover my house. Done (albeit at a much higher rate).
Then after a couple more years, the commercial policy writer says we
are no longer going to write "small business" so you are cancelled.
Checked with home insurance company - they don't write commercial.
Looked around - found another company to write small business (again
at a much higher rate). A week or so ago, send in annual premium for
the commercial policy - last night got a call from them - "We will no
longer write a policy for less than $xxx annual premium" . The $xxx
annual premium is about $50 more than the already considerably higher
premium I had been paying for the commercial coverage. I broke - said
send back my check , cancel my policy, I'm going to close the business
as I don't work for the insurance company and ain't gonna spend every
evening and all weekends working to pay an insurance premium.
Anyone out there have any suggestions? BTW - I just morally can't
gouge my customers to pay an insurance premium. There is a repair
shop not too far from where I'm located that has a big sign ----" We
charge $90/hour to work on your mower. We charge $30 for an estimate"
Ken (depressed).

I understand your problem. Because of an ownership change
issue, I have just completed negotiating and moving to a
new company:

1. Building fire and theft
2. Business general liability
3. Business product liability
4. Business auto liability
5. Workman's comp.
6. Employee long-term disability
7. Employee health insurance.
8. Employee vision care insurance.

And probably a couple other things I can't remember.
So yeah, sorry it forced you out of business. I don't
have any great fondness for insurance companies at
the moment either.

All I can suggest is finding a hungry broker to
dig around for you. There might be something that
you missed. Also, insurance rates vary tremendously
with the classifications of work (and resulting
risk) that you do. Make sure that you are rated for
the least risky classifications that you can honestly
get by with.