Insurance; 18% increase

[hardboiled]

I received my renewal quote today and my business insurance is increasing by more than $200.00. Is this common? It's with Western World Insurance Group; I had no claims, and this will be my second year. I'd like to shop for better rates, but does moving around have its own bad consequences? I was in a scramble to get everything set up on time last year so I didn't do much shopping then. Since then, I have seen some in other areas areas are paying as little as half of my cost.

[Stephen M.]

I received my renewal quote today and my business insurance is increasing by more than $200.00. Is this common? It's with Western World Insurance Group; I had no claims, and this will be my second year. I'd like to shop for better rates, but does moving around have its own bad consequences? I was in a scramble to get everything set up on time last year so I didn't do much shopping then. Since then, I have seen some in other areas areas are paying as little as half of my cost.

Yea it's very common since 9/11 and be very happy it stopped at 18%.

Last year my insurance broker sent out a letter to all of us business people in his group explaining what was going on in the insurance industry and how the Underwriters have lost big buck$ on 9/11, natural disasters, and claims due to the fallout of a bad stock market. The letter said not to make claims under $1000 and pay the bill on time as not to be red flagged and get cancelled. In other words, the industry got up crabby and "is tied of the S**t and ain't takin it no more" at your and mine expense.

We have a big problem in WA with liabilty insurance because of the CA lawsuits in the building industry from crappy multi family housing. That crap has a way of going past state lines; when CA gets a problem, pretty soon it's everybodies problem. Anyway, because of that problem, my long standing Insurance Company decided to pull out of the contractor market. My broker found me Allied, a subsiderary of Nationwide, but they aren't as with it as my last company. As a landscape contractor, I registered as a general contractor so I can do more things than just 2 catagories as required with a specialty status. But that meant higher rates, and fortunately its only costing me slightly more than $1000 more than I paid previously.

Some building contractors in WA have seen their liability insurance skyrocket from $6000/year to over $24000/year!!!!!! And it has driven some out of business, or they had to develope a differet approach to what they offered in services.

[hardboiled]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I'm glad its not more. The tree trimmer I used on my home said his went up 100% without any claims. His insurance company was the one handling claims from plate glass that fell from a building in Chicago and killed someone.
I'm not involved in landscape construction or construction and remodeling but included in my paperwork was a form for Artisan Contractors. Most of its questions revolve around building housing. Not sure why they're asking me to fill this out, but its probably a result of what you cited happening with lawsuits over poor construction.
I think I'll take my chances and forego the terrorism coverage. If terrorist get that close to me hopefully my Steyr U.S.R. can handle it.

[Stephen M.]

LCO and landscape contracting falls into the "Artisan" catagory of insurance. An "artisan" is either specialty or general in contracting terms. When we changed companies, the wife and I went to our brokers office to answer questions on the new form to prove our "insurability" and give examples of different catagories and $$ amounts of our contracts. We passed their "test" and got the new insurance. It's easier to get insurance as a "specialty" contractor, but that limits us to much in WA. But since we are general contractors, our costs are higher than a LCO which is a competitive disadvantage, but not impossible to overcome.