General Liability Questionnaire: Fill & Download for Free

One of our longest-held (and best-liked by all who work here) corporate clients is a global reinsurance giant — basically they’re a superpower like the US, but without nukes and with more money.Anyway, at one of our early get-to-know-you lunches a while back, a member of their delegation was (and is) a corporate honcho from one of their North American industrial subsidiaries**. He introduced himself as a life-long insurance guy who started as an insurance salesman in a strip mall, and later did general liability policies for small and midsized companies. For a decade, he ran our client’s general liability reinsurance risk management division. So he knew liability insurance.Making conversation, I explained that we were/are a small consultancy that did/does a lot of travel and on-site work with clients, but we only have one office, less than 20 employees, and a terrifyingly short client list who continually hire us enough to keep us in business for more than 15 years. So I asked.Me:“How much general liability insurance do we really need? Do we even need indemnity coverage, or total litigation coverage? We’ve never had a claim and nobody’s even hinted that they want to sue us.”Reinsurance Client / Subsidiary Honcho:“Before I joined [REDACTED], I developed a pretty sophisticated calculator to predict the answers to the questions you just asked. We still use something like it now, but it’s a little more sophisticated.”Me:“I’d love to see it — either of them. Does it take long?”RE Client / Honcho:“There’s a questionnaire, some processing, the usual. You want to try it out?”Me:“Totally. I’ll have our scheduler contact your office to set it up…”RE Client / Honcho:“No schedule necessary. We can do it right here. Ready?”Me: [Confused…]RE Client / Honcho:“Great. Starting on the general liability section. Ready? Good. Question #1…”Me:[Furiously looking for my notebook and/or attention of my business partners…]RE Client / Honcho:“Need for General Liability Coverage. Checklist, Item A: Are you in a business where humans interact in any way?”Me:[Nervous chuckle…] “Yes, I would say humans are a critical part of our firm.”RE Client / Honcho:”Great. End of Need for General Liability Coverage checklist, End of Section. Now calculating… Yes, you need general liability insurance.”Me:[Trying to act like I knew this was all a setup] “Of course! Because humans sue each other. For everything. And humans have things happen to them that money sometimes makes what happened less unhappy. But how about the part where I asked how much coverage I need?”RE Client / Honcho:”Coverage? No calculator for that necessary. Just think of what it would cost to to start a new, similar sized business, pay your employees, find clients or revenue to keep things going, and whatever profit the partners take off the top. Triple whatever number you get to. That’s the ideal General Liability coverage to carry for a low-risk, non-retail, services-only small operation. If you can’t afford the premiums on triple, call their competitor. If that doesn’t work, call me.”I didn’t call the competition — I asked him to arrange a sales call with someone he liked in the general liability area of our client’s business, and he’s been our agent ever since. Good price, never used it still.** Footnote: This company is so massive that their subsidiaries rarely are organized by geographic location, because even the subsidiaries are international corporations. They have a Global Shipping Group, which has shipping insurers (and shipping companies!) as subsidiaries. Scary-big.

I don't think I would ever consider purchasing liability insurance online. There are way too many variables with regard to what exactly is needed for a particular business to trust an algorithm. I would rather have a person visit me and discuss the particulars of my business.As far as workers comp, perhaps this might fly if the business is new and has no historical data that may affect how the policy is written but again, as the business gains an experience rating I don't think that a generic online questionnaire- even when coupled to an insurance clearinghouse database- can provide the best result.

The first thing you should do is absolutely, positively find yourself an attorney who has set up venture capital funds before!Trying to do this yourself, or getting advice online (even from Quora, The Source of All Great Wisdom™), will be suicidal. Setting up an investment fund is a specialized activity for which even most experienced corporate attorneys who handle venture financing would probably direct you to a specialist.That said, when you find such an attorney, she will likely answer your questions as follows:Every single one of your 8-10 investors absolutely, positively must be an individual Accredited Investor for their own partYou and your partner must also both be Accredited investors.The ownership structure will almost certainly be a Limited Liability Company (LLC), in which you and your partner are the General Partners, and your Investors are the Limited Partners.You don't need to "register" as a fund (private funds are not registered per se) although you will need to file a Form D after you take in the capital.You don't need to "register as accredited" (there is no such registration), but for every single investment that you make into a company, the company's counsel is going to require you to execute an Investor Questionnaire, certifying that the fund itself, and all of its limited and general partners, are themselves Accredited.As for books, I'd suggest you take a look at:The Business of Venture CapitalInsights from Leading Practitioners on the Art of Raising a Fund, Deal Structuring, Value Creation, and Exit Strategies by Mahendra RamsinghaniAngel InvestingThe Gust Guide to Making Money & Having Fun Investing in Startups by David S. RoseNot that I have any self-interest here at all...