No Insurance For Internet Marketers?

12 years ago

Great point Ross. I come from a financial advice background and there is Professional Indemnity Insurance for the advice given in cases of complaints by clients. Admittedly there will be some serious excess to pay out in the event of a claim, but at least there's some cover.
I thought about this myself recently, what would the "Guru's" do if Aweber or Get Response went down and said sorry we've lost all our data, they would be left in no man's land.
I think online Insurance would be an awesome idea and badly needed and i'm sure would have a big take up (i for sure would). it would interesting to see how it would operate in practice though in terms of premiums, excess, liability etc.

Joel

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RogueOne 12 years ago

Originally Posted by Joel Ross

if Aweber or Get Response went down and said sorry we've lost all our data

How would you insure that?

Every time you got a new subscriber you would have to update your policy.

Back up all your data including your list. That's IM insurance.

And I won't even charge you for it!
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mikaroee

12 years ago

I think that with the nature of this business being so unstable that it would not be worth it for the insurance market to get involved.

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marketinguk 12 years ago

Yeah i hear what you say, my angle was from the point of view of the Marketer not the Insurance Provider. I don't know if you're right on that one but i don't know how they would look at it, and how they would quantify the risk.
Joel

Originally Posted by mikaroee

I think that with the nature of this business being so unstable that it would not be worth it for the insurance market to get involved.
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- Dean Shainin 12 years ago
  
  The cost would be my primary concern. Are you sure there is not insurance for Internet marketing ventures?
  
  And it's not as unlikely as some might think. I've actually had a big part of my business get lost even from a back up server. Most of it was retrieved from our hard drives, etc. but some was lost for good...
  
  Cheers,
  Dean
  
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Mark Alan

12 years ago

It would be unlikely that an insurance company could be found that is willing to cover that sort of risk because it is too difficult to know what the risk is. The bulk of most business insurance is “liability insurance” which protects you when you get sued by your customers. Then there is workman’s comp and property insurance. Trying to underwrite an online business against loss of business income would be a very costly and a long process even if you were able to find a company that was willing to do it. Indeed underwriting for the three types of insurance I mentioned for say a simple mom and pop brick and mortar business is a long process that often takes weeks or a month or more.

Affiliates could never receive a cut because insurance is regulated by the individual states, only licensed agents can sell it and they can only sell it in the states that they are licensed to sell it in. The licensing process involves a background check, sitting through days of courses and then having to pass an exam.

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Assaf_L

12 years ago

An insurance for websites might be possible, it would have many problems, but there are many solutions. On the other hand, a list insurance is closer to income insurance, and i don't think any company will offer that.

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Jasonsc

12 years ago

Good post - never really thought about it.

I'm not too up to speed on insurance law - but is it possible for a B&M company to get insurance to protect against it's suppliers going out of business? I think this comparable to if Getresponse or Aweber lost all of their data.

Contracts are of course a big part of the relationship between a supplier and a company. I know there is implicit contracts between the likes of Aweber and it's users - but personally I like the fact that we don't have to go through the arduous process of dealing with express contracts. Which I think would probably be necessary were insurance companies to be involved in the whole mix.

Hmmmm, I'm not sure if there's enough transparency over the internet for an insurance company to operate profitably. It's a lot more difficult to catch a hacker than it is to catch a B&M thief - so I imagine this would it very easy for someone to "cash out" when things got rough.

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brentb

12 years ago

I will insure your website for $150 per month. If it ever fails I will pay you the monthly profits of your site to you for one full year...

In your case its only $1.53 a month from adsense... bwahaha

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Ross Cohen

12 years ago

Perhaps because of the extreme uncertainty for the insurers, they'd have to charge highly inflated prices that would lead to only very risk-aversed individuals deciding to take advantage of it.

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marketinguk

12 years ago

Yeah that's what i think would happen too. I don't agree with some others here who say it's uninsurable, but i do think the premiums would be very high and if they had bad experience boy would they rocket it up even further.
The people who really value their business and what it would mean in the case of something extreme going wrong, i'm sure they would be up for it.
Joel

Originally Posted by Ross Cohen

Perhaps because of the extreme uncertainty for the insurers, they'd have to charge highly inflated prices that would lead to only very risk-aversed individuals deciding to take advantage of it.

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Mark Alan

12 years ago

The cheapest most cost effective insurance an Internet Marketer can get is organizing their business as an LLC. It is the cheapest liability insurance money can buy.

Originally Posted by Ross Cohen

Perhaps because of the extreme uncertainty for the insurers, they'd have to charge highly inflated prices that would lead to only very risk-aversed individuals deciding to take advantage of it.

Thanks

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Jasonsc

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Ross Cohen

Perhaps because of the extreme uncertainty for the insurers, they'd have to charge highly inflated prices that would lead to only very risk-aversed individuals deciding to take advantage of it.

I think you're right ... and I imagine that the low number of individuals who would want to avail of this would mean that it makes it infeasible for an insurance company like this to operate.

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Curtis2011

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Ross Cohen

As any brick & mortar businessman or businesswoman would tell you, having insurance on your place of business is extremely important. Should something disastrous ever happen, you'd be covered... assuming the insurance company can't weasel their way out.

But what about for Internet marketers? With their full-time income being based in a virtual world, what if disaster hits? Your list disappears, website gets hacked... it could all be over (assuming the backup server failed... and the backup-backup server too). Sure it's unlikely, but that's why insurance exists. To protect from the unlikely (occurrences).

Then again, tracking these sorts of mishaps would be difficult. People could try and cheat the system (i.e. "hacking themselves").

If online insurance were offered, what would your thoughts on it be?

(Online insurance companies could offer affiliates some pretty sweet residual income too...)

1. Incorporate your operations as a registered business.

2. Take out insurance on your registered business.

3. Now you have insurance on your internet marketing business.

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TheWrightWords

12 years ago

Interesting idea -- I have job specific disability coverage, meaning if I can't perform my primary work function/job I'm covered. That more applies to writing, speaking, performing, and the like, not actual inventory or physical location/property insurance.

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Silas Hart

12 years ago

...I have insurance for my business. What is an internet business anyways? I own a business that also utilizes the internet.

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Irwin Dominguez

12 years ago

I think about this all the time - I would pay for it depending on the cost. I would read the contract very carefully though!

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No Insurance For Internet Marketers?

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