Starter Kit. Idea 171 of 500. Cluster 7
Insurance products for guesthouses and small producers that actually pay out
The mechanism, from the book
The tiny business pathway. A rural woman with an exceptional product should not need photography, English copy, packaging design and a distributor before the world can find her.
The first step
Interview 10 guesthouse owners and small producers about what they have lost in the past 5 years, to flood, fire, theft or cancellations, and whether any insurance claim was paid. Write the losses in a table. Take it to an insurance broker and ask what policy would cover those risks, and at what premium. Then ask the owners whether they would pay it.
- Who pays first
- A guesthouse owner who lost a season to a flood or cancellations and wants cover that pays quickly.
- What leaves today
- One uninsured loss can wipe out a small business, so the owner sells up or leaves, and the value they built is gone.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how to register a company that will work alongside licensed insurers.
Check before you spend
That you are licensed to sell or broker insurance, or work with an insurer that is, and that the claims rules are written plainly.
Find out these three numbers
- What do guesthouses pay for insurance now?
- How many claims are refused today, and why?
- What would a small producer pay for cover that pays?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"None of that is a value. All of it is checkable, which is the only property that matters."
Publish how claims are paid so customers can check the promise.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.