I have run into similar issues with businesses I have sold recently. New operator = hard to insure. If you think the general liability is hard to find, wait until you shop the auto.
Unlike so many Indy stores, we have always had hired and non-owned covereage. Over a 15 year period we have had four different policies. Currently, we are with Allied which has been the easiest ever to deal with and to comply with the underwriting reporting requirements these policies all have. In 15 years we have paid about 60K in premiums and had one single claim for 7K based on a driver at fault who, despite our regular checks, did not have insurance in force when the accident occurred and our coverage paid.
I did not have good luck with Fireman’s. I found all the hoop jumping really tedious and the steady stream of up-charges made a mockery of the original quote. In particular the outsourced MVR service is a vampire on your checkbook. OK if you can not find coverage elsewhere, but I would not go back to them if I had a choice. Also, we had a headache when an invoice was apparently lost in the mail and we missed a payment. Nobody called and then we got a cancellation notice with such a short trigger that since I did not open the mail more than once a week I missed until Friday afternoon the day it cancelled. They have no local agent for this coverage and we could not get anyone on the phone for three days to set up a direct payment and had to stop delivering on one of the biggest weekends of the year. That cost me 6K in sales. I hate them.
