Very RelevantDo you make more than $5000/yr in your business?

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I wrote about this last month, and nobody seemed to notice the dangers to

your business if this insurance change comes into effect. Please follow the

link to learn more.

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from Donna Coles, of HBN:

With tremendous growth comes tremendous change. What better time to take

stock of that than the first week of a New Year? Of course the handmade

beauty industry has undergone huge growth over the past five years. HBN

started in 2000 with no members. By the middle of the year, there were 46.

Two years later, there were 200 and today, there are over 450 members in 7

countries.

While many HBN members operate their businesses outside of their homes, many

others work and manufacture products at home. Indeed the number of

home-based businesses in all sectors of the economy is increasing and

micro-formulators of cosmetics is no different. With the growth of the

home-based micro-formulator comes the increase in the number of consumers

who are able to benefit from the unique benefits of handmade beauty

products. And you know what that means of course -- increased liability

exposure, at least in the minds of the bean counters at the nation's

insurance companies.

As a result of our industry's success, RLI Corp., one of the only companies

that provides comprehensive products liability insurance nationwide,

announced a decision to discontinue providing products liability coverage

for businesses that gross over $5,000 in sales per year. That means that

people will have to choose between stagnation at the $5,000 level or growth

and success without products liability coverage. For some it may even mean

closing their doors since a growing number of retail outlets across all

sectors of the economy will not buy products unless the manufacturer can

produce a certificate of insurance.

What does this mean for HBN? Well, judging from the number of responses I

got from an announcement sent to the membership on December 21, 2005, it

means that a priority for HBN this year is to seek out alternatives and

ensure that our members voices are heard on this issue.

To that end, I have assembled the Home-Based Personal Care Business Task

Force (see Announcement), consisting of the following organizations which

accepted the invitation to join the Task Force as leaders:

The Handcrafted Soap Makers' Guild (Marie Gale, President)

The National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (Michele ,

President)

The Natural Perfumer's Group. (Anya McCoy)

Dozens of HBN members have also joined the Task Force so that collectively,

we can make sure that RLI and others understand fully the consequences of

their actions. Stay tuned over the next several weeks for updates. If you

have been affected by RLI's decision and wish to serve on the Task Force,

see instructions for joining in the Announcement.

I have also updated HBN's website Task Force Page with an announcement about

your agreement to participate. See

http://www.handmadebeauty.com/taskforce/index.asp.

Anya

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