[premiermaids]

Last Friday, following a local maildrop, I received an enquiry from a potential client who gave a description of his property and asked for an estimate, which I duly gave and arranged to visit him tuesday(today).

On Saturday I dropped off a letter confirming our appointment and enclosed a copy of our standard terms and condition.

On Monday I received a call from the potential client who informed me that " having read your  terms and conditions in detail, we feel that we are left with so little cover that we would prefer to stay with the company we have at the moment. They give us much greater cover and therefore avoid the need to claim on our own insurance policy in the event of problems". 

I am not sure how many other clients I may have lost due to my T&C's - a few have cancelled appointments after I have dropped off a confirmation letter and T&C's.

The question is has this hapened to anyone else. If so,
then how was it remedied?

I have 'standard' public liability with an exclusion for the first £100 for loss and/or damages sustained by the client. Exclusions apply - glass,china,jewellery,cash ..(etc).

I freely admit that I can understand my lost clients concern
and would like to offer much better protection and would welcome advice on how/where to obtain and the likely costs; my insurance broker seems to think that public liability should be enough - though it clearly is not.

Suggestions would be very welcome.

Regards

Jim

[Len Gribble]

Jim

Try and get hold of one of the franchise T/C, get one of them round to quote for your house

Len

[premiermaids]

Thanks Len.

I would be interested to know if most of the domestic cleaners have 'standard' public liability or offer some form of 'enhanced' cover.

Regards

Jim

[maggie67]

Hi Jim

Also in the domestic cleaning business I phoned around all the local cleaning companies from the smaller concerns to the larger franchises, I actually asked for a copy of the T & C's straight up explaining that having received a set from company 'x' : I found that there were lots of clauses which I hadn't expected.  Having received t & c's from them all they were all more or less the same. 

Therefore on a more positive note you may find your original overly cautious enquirer coming back to you.

Don't despair

Kind regards

Maggie

[Jan K]

Hi Jim!

I have standard insurance but my excess is £50.00 and same exclusions apply as yours. I only have about 30 Clients at present, and have had about 4 in the past 8 months to whom I have sent info (including T and C) that haven't come back to me, but I haven't followed them up...probably should have really........I always advise potential Clients to advise us of anything valuable or breakable and we would avoid touching those items.

My biggest fear at present is that the last 3 Clients I have taken on have all got huge plasma TV's (loadsa money), and I specifically advise my Cleaners to be extra careful and not to use any cleaning liquids on them at all (better to be safe than sorry).

Public/employers liability insurance is expensive enough without Clients 'forcing' us to increase our costs further!!