Having a business that you run out of your home can be a stressful and risky endeavor. In fact, if you are not careful you can end up losing the home if you have customers that come to you. This is exactly what happened to my Uncle Jimmy and his bike repair business that he ran out of his garage. The saddest thing about it is that a good public liability insurance policy would have prevented it from happening.
You see, my Uncle Jimmy lost his delivery driver job about four years ago and decided to repair bikes out of his garage instead of getting another driving job. Tinkering with bikes was something that he had done for as long as I could remember. And my Aunt Linda worked for the school, so they had steady income coming in.
One Saturday afternoon, Uncle Jimmy was showing a customer some repairs that needed to be made on his bike when the unthinkable happened. Another bike fell over on top of them while they were down inspecting the broken bike. The customer was closest to the falling bike and it ended up breaking his leg. Uncle Jimmy also ended up with a gash on his arm and head from the bike.
Both of them ended up at the local hospital. A few weeks after that, Uncle Jimmy was hit with the hospital bills for the customer. After consulting with a lawyer, he learned that he was liable for the bills. And since he did not have a public liability insurance policy for the business, he was going to have to pay out of pocket for the bills. He and my aunt Linda ended up having to sell the house just to cover the cost of the bills, which also means he could no longer work since he didn’t have a garage any longer.
They ended up moving into the spare room at my parents house and Uncle Jimmy had to get another delivery driver job. If he would have taken out a self employed public liability policy for his bike repair business, then they would still be in that house and he wouldn’t have to be driving trucks again.