Some agents are simply not educated on this type of business. I know many home inventory service businesses who get their liability insurance with no problem and often are categorized as any of the following:
photography, personal services, inventory or consulting.
As I was contacting a couple insurance companies for G/L and Bonding, one told me that they couldn't give me the insurance because they didn't have an industry for home inventory while the other told me that he believes the home inventory business could be classified as consulting. And that is what he would use in selling me G/L insurance.
This is what I call the listing problem: I went to Allpages.com with my 48503 zip code and looked under local professionals, where it ran the gamut from Attorneys to Veternarians, but the closes it came to our profession was Insurance. That typically is the case and the problem in a nutshell. Recently I talked with a gentleman from Servicemagic, trying to get into their program, by having my business available for referrals to their customers. Essentially this problem of where to list us came up. We're obviously not strictly in the area of Insurance, nor Investment's, but are definitely in the arena of Inventory. There is of course RGIS Inventory and they usually are listed as Commercial or Warehouse Inventory Services. The suggestion which I reject is that they are that and we are not that as well. What I guesss this means is that we have much to prove to the public and the consumer in particular.
Anyone have a listing for our services that has touched on new territory that they could share with us, it would be greatly appreciated? Last year I was a member of the local Business to Business organization, the deal where you do your service for the other company doing its service for you. Although I didn't get any business from the Expo that was put on, time was spent on videotaping the conferees who attended. Apparently it'll take a lot more of this type of public education work before our field is like a household name, as it should be. After all they need us and our service before they buy their insurance and right after they install all of that high security stuff they need to survive these days.
