Page 1 of 1

Peer-2-Peer Musical Instrument Rental Insurance (SV Startup)

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:28 am
by tobytobitobe
EDIT: 793 Views, 0 replies. Does that mean there's no hope???



Hello everyone,


I'd like to inquire about insurance for our business:

We're a peer-to-peer internet startup based in San Jose, CA. Our platform will allow local users to buy/sell/trade/rent their musical equipment to each other for a small fee.

(Think getaround.com or AirBnB for musical instruments)

ref: "Sharing Economy Calls For Insurance Innovation" by Andrea Wells via InsuranceJournal
http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazin ... 238146.htm


Ideally, we'd like to offer an optional and affordable, short-term insurance policy to our users for rental liability such as damaged equipment.

Most of the items are guitars, but many other instruments will be rented out as well, including pianos, keyboards, drum sets, brass and wind instruments, DJ equipment, speakers, amplifiers, etc.

The terms range from daily, weekly, and monthly rentals.

We're currently in a beta stage with local users, but our platform is scheduled to launch publicly to various markets at the end of October/early November.

We've contacted about a dozen insurance companies (most of them specializing in musical equipment, party rentals, and/or production equipment) but have yet to find anyone willing to consider the option.

Most of the turn-downs have resulted from the short-term policy per user, impractical yearly premium (from the users' point of view), and possibly because I haven't been able to reach anyone high-level enough to make a decision based on the high-volume potential.

There have been some suggestions to send our users directly to the insurance company, but again, it is impractical due to a number of reasons....

As of right now, it seems our only option is to insure in-house.

My question is:

IS THERE ANY COMPANY OUT THERE THAT CAN OFFER A POLICY SIMILAR TO WHAT I DESCRIBED?

If not...

Is there any company that could offer us a sort of "business liability" insurance where we pay a collective premium based on the number of users/transactions and we can from there charge the users a small premium ourselves?


If still no..... IS ANYONE FEELING "INNOVATIVE???" :wink:


Thanks in advance,

Tobias

8)

Re: Peer-2-Peer Musical Instrument Rental Insurance (SV Star

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:51 am
by tobytobitobe
793 Views, no replies?

Does that mean there's no hope?

Thanks.

Re: Peer-2-Peer Musical Instrument Rental Insurance (SV Star

Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:29 am
by miinsguy
Sorry but your plan will only work if you get an insurance license.

There is not enough commission to earn by a producer for most of us to consider looking to even try and place this type of account.

Re: Peer-2-Peer Musical Instrument Rental Insurance (SV Star

Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:34 am
by tobytobitobe
miinsguy wrote:Sorry but your plan will only work if you get an insurance license.

There is not enough commission to earn by a producer for most of us to consider looking to even try and place this type of account.

Thanks for the reply!

And getting an insurance license...how so? I'm new to this, any info/leads would help a bunch!