there are plenty of small job builders who can’t get the insurance because you basically need to put up your house as collateral.
Point 1 above.
I have gone through hell through the years with Home Owners Warranty. Yes, you are correct. I had to put my house up as collateral, just to get the insurance to even work. Even then, the Insurance underwriter came back with a limit of turnover I could have per annum. WTF!!! I was limited to $1 million turnover a year. Max job size I was limited to was $400 k's.
How in the f**k am I supposed to grow my business when an insurance company decides how much work I can do?
It is an absolutely disgraceful system.
Sure, I understand they are trying to weed out the dodgy builders, but it hasn't worked as the dodgey's just go and do work anyway.
I have a perfect HOW Insurance record and have only ever had one false unhappy customer. My work was perfect. He was an accountant (and screwed me big time at the end of the job). Cost me many 10's of thousands and it wasn't worth my while trying to chase it through legal avenues as he would have made sure it cost me much more fighting it. He was a complete arsehole.
I later found out that 2 years later, he then sold the place for $3 million more than he had paid to buy and renovate, yet he nearly sent my business broke by refusing to pay the final bill, which was pocket money to him.
So where is the protection for builders?
Home Owners Warranty Insurance is a f**king scam. If I'd done a dodgy job on this guys house and he claimed against me, I could have lost my house, yet, I did the perfect job, and I didn't get paid in the end.
I've just never understood how an insurance company can decide the annual turnover of a business, but this is how HOW works. There's also been so many other hoops I have had to climb through, just to be able to get the insurance to be able to work that I haven't even mentioned above.
The whole system almost made me leave the industry, yet I have fought my way through it.
In the end, I've only ended up earning wages.