Thimble Now Covers E-commerce Makers & Merchants
Thimble now offers product liability insurance for home-based manufacturing businesses including candles, apparel, jewelry, soap, and leather goods.
We wanted to share the why.
When does a factory also have a bathtub?
When you’re a maker.
Makers, crafters, or home-based manufacturers, whatever the term, goods manufactured at home are much more than a “cottage industry;” they’re a major component of the small business sector. The global makers economy is worth an estimated $718 billion (with a B) in 2021, and last year, the number of sellers on Etsy nearly doubled from 2.7 million merchants to more than 4.3 million.
One thing is clear: handicrafts are serious business and, until now, this class of independent workers has been underserved by business tech with antiquated products to match.
Insurance for makers has been hard to get, difficult to understand, and unresponsive to the changing needs of growing home-based businesses — exactly the kind of opportunity that makes our ears perk up at Thimble. After hearing the pain points from customers and partners, Thimble is proud to announce that we now cover some of the most popular home-based manufacturing businesses.
Why is Thimble the choice for makers?
Because we added product liability coverage.
Product liability coverage (n): Coverage for bodily injury or property damage arising from the sale of goods manufactured or sold by the insured.
With the numbers out there on the size of the maker economy, this was a no-brainer that took a lot of brains to accomplish. (If you asked our Insurance team, they’d tell you we technically removed an exclusion, but anyway…) We’re excited to roll out policies for these professionals:
Thimble is now poised to be the perfect full-service insurance product for more home-based vendors and craftspeople on marketplaces like Etsy, Depop, and Amazon. This innovation came straight from our own customers because lots of makers were already using Thimble for their pop-up shops, farmer’s market booths, and more.
Take one of our favorite Thimble customers for example: Heritage House Candles in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is a candle company with optimistic scents like “Negativity Repellent” and “Rise Above It” that donates a portion of its profits to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the country. They’ve used Thimble for in-person shopping experiences, but now they can add insurance for their e-commerce business and continue to spread positivity wherever they ship their candles.
How does Thimble work for these businesses?
Not-so-fun fact: Product liability is actually sometimes excluded by other providers (whether or not they tell their customers), so adding this coverage makes Thimble the total package for the most common risks associated with running a business from home.
But how would product liability coverage work in a claim? Say, for example, you sell a candle on Etsy to a Mr. Wick Burns in Waxahachie. If a defect in your candle causes a fire or an injury to Mr. Burns, the policy could respond to cover those damages, as well as providing you a defense if you end up in court.
This is protection for the main risk you run when you ship your wares to your customer, which is why product liability coverage is essential, and sometimes required, for any legitimate online retail business.
What’s next?
Product liability coverage is essential for any legitimate online retail business.
But what’s next? As always, we’re working to add more professions. Because every time we add coverage for a new kind of work, we make it possible for another army of doers to have a lightbulb moment, put down the lukewarm office coffee, do one of those dramatic sweep-everything-off-your-desk exits, and start building a business around their passion.
It’s why we think Thimble for makers is about to really blow up. Or…uh… figuratively blow up. And either way, that’s why we’ve got insurance.
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- Learn more about insurance for makers and what it covers.
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