[hackerspaces] insuring a hackerspace

[Paul Böhm]

Hey nicole,

I was responsible for getting insurance for metalab quite soon after we opened.

My experience It's really tough to make educated decision about
insurance: their terms are complicated, we're a very unusual case, and
even after trying to be diligent we have no idea if the insurance
we've got is really going to cover the cases we anticipated. Also for
small stuff like glass breakage usually everyone hates bureaucracy too
much to actually claim the insurance. So aim for covering the really
bad scenarios and don't worry too much about small cases.

We went through multiple brokers, compared their offers, and finally
went with the one that was most supportive of us and our project.
Our insurance fees are tied to the amount of members we have, and the
estimated value of equipment. Still, expect insurance costs to go up
after the first year,
since they'll try to upsell you when you've grown. Insurance however
isn't a big number on our budget, so i'd opt for going with the
broadest coverage for really bad cases, and the broker that manages to
best adapt their offer to the specifics of insuring a hackerspace. No
point in pinching pennies there.

enki

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 3:02 PM, nicolle n. <superherogirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> my name is nicolle, and i live in Chicago.  i'm helping plan Pumping
> Station: One, the soon-to-be hackerspace here.
>
> i was just wondering...has anyone else on this list gone through the process
> of searching for and finding insurance for a hackerspace?  did you talk to
> insurance companies directly, or go through a broker?  what was your
> experience like?  did you have to have a physical place rented
> before shopping for the insurance, or could you get the insurance quotes
> lined up before signing a lease on a place?
>
> i'm in the process of researching the availability of insurance, and i'd be
> really interested to know what it's like for someone who has been through
> the process of getting their hackerspace insured.
>
> thank you all...i'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences in
> this.
>
> nicolle
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