Holidays present opportunity to assess home business insurance needs

Holiday bazaars and other events held by churches and community organizations provide a marketplace for many people to place their home-made goods—from baked goods to holiday crafts—for sale.

Home-based business owners may think their homeowners or renters policies will cover liability resulting from their business activities, but the reality is, most policies exclude coverage for business exposure. These businesses should have insurance coverage and could benefit from RLI's Home Business Insurance policy.

Ask your customers about their home-based business exposures and review their policies to see if they need additional coverage. For holiday bazaar vendors, RLI's Home Business Insurance policy can be written for those who:

• make holiday cakes, pies and cookies
• sell popcorn/candy and nuts
• make ceramics, handicrafts and wood products
• make holiday cards
• take holiday photographs for sale
• sell games, puzzles, and retail toys
• sell antiques and art
• make leather goods and clothing
• make costume jewelry

See the full list of eligible businesses.

Many holiday bazaar venues require vendors to list the event organizer and property owner as an Additional Insured, and RLI can accommodate that as well.

Coverage includes up to $1 million in business liability protection, up to $100,000 comprehensive coverage for business personal property, and $5,000 per person for medical payments to customers injured on-premises and coverage for loss of income. The product is targeted to more than 143 retail and service risks that present minimal product and/or professional liability exposures. Coverage also extends to business personal property that is in transit or temporarily off-premises when an insured is offering products at community centers, churches, local malls, etc. 

If you're not yet writing business through RLI, become a subagent.