Need insurance for my warehouse help.
 

I own a building that I purchased to store my boat. Its located in Sarasota Florida.

The building is 5,000 sqft 3,000 warehouse 2,000 and bathrooms office. The building was built in 85' but I remodeld in 05 with hurricane shutters and doors. The main building is block not metal.

I have been thru 2 carriers and now the current company is cancelling me because they had my building inspected and they believe that my boat creates to much risk. The company is MSA. I have several personal property items in my building including a flats boat, jet ski, tools and a luxury car.



I do not want hurricane coverage.

They placed my building at 427k I do not need content coverage.


I have qoutes for 3k.

Please point me in the right direction.


Dan

Not sure what all they do in FL, but Voyager insurance services is a very helpful agent. They basically do all the insurance shopping for you. They really made things easy for me.

Is this insured as personal property? Wonder if an LLC of some sort could help reduce cost and provide write-offs. I am also curious of ways around this.

It would have to be for business use. If you ran a business from the wharehouse - sure you could write off a lot and you don't need the LLC to do that. If you rented some of the space you would be allowed to pro-rate expenses for business use of the wharehouse. If its by itself on the side of the street visible by the public you may be able to use the wharehouse as a billboard type business and get the deductions that way, but you would have to find someone to advertise or advertise your own business if you have one.

Call Brown and Brown
That do all types of Bus. insurance.
I deal with the Miami office, but they have other locations.
Or Travelers.

Do you have a number?

Can you rent out the office?

Vacant properties are hard to insure.

Something to consider...

Set up a coprporation for building ownership, then insure it as a rental property. Rent it to yourself as an individual lessee. The corp can then depreciate the building. Insurers are often iffy on any sort of individual activity that looks commercial.

They're probably pretty nervous about all those expensive unattended vehicles full of fuel. Does the building have a to-code drain into a trap? Several hundred gallons of fuel into the muni sewer 9or the ground) is also a red flag. Your fire department might not like that either. An alarm is helpful and a sprinkler would likely make many of the problems disappear.

Is your agent telling you specifically what the underwriter doesn't like?

In my experience, a local independent agent that deals with vehicle-related business is going to be your best bet. If he's good and has these types situations already under coverage, he knows where to go. He doesn't have to educate an underwriter on the situation and probably has some sort of claims experience to show them.

website http://www.voyagerinsurance.net/

Thanks,

I own it under my trust and it is owner occupied.


This is the cancellation letter.



Dan

Just move up north:D

Insurance guy here. Today's replacement cost of your building ($200 per sq ft MINIMUM) is $1 mill based on 5000 sq ft. Based on the occupancy of the building I don't think a "standard" carrier like Travelers, CNA etc will write this. You'll likely wind up with an "excess and surplus lines" carrier like Lexington, Lloyds and hundreds of others. Pricing would be somewhere around $7k here in NY at $1 mill coverage. Contact your local larger independent insurance agent for this. They are your BEST resource for this stuff. Check out www.iiaa.com for a list.

Dan,

Contact Scott McEwan @813-864-4428. He owns Gulf Coast Underwriters and it is located here in Tampa. I am sure you have met him before. He has "Silent Partner" the 45 Excalibur that always does the poker runs with the OPBA.

Keith

Thanks Keith

I like your idea. If it can fly, looks to be great for the long run - in many ways. Why not rent it out to others also?? 5,000 s.f. is a lot of space for just a few toys. Dan can always put up a wall, etc. to keep his toys separate from everybody else. Either he is in the fortunate position to need a few losses or has a major car collection, etc. he is wisely not publicizing. :cool-smiley-011:

Contractor here.
If I could get awy with charging $150.00+- ? SF for warehouse/office construction, I would own a few Apachees, couple OL's, 1/2 doz. MTI's, 5 Cigs. for every day in the week, a 2 or 3 Nortechs 50'ters for the weekends, a donzi XZ comp just for fun, and everyone I know would get a Waveruner for X-mas.
No wonder ins. prems. are in Pluto :angry-smiley-038:

Sorry to go off topic, but Paradox; up in Ohio a few years ago, I could build a nice shopping center shell for $50 s.f. with a $25 s.f. buildout on average (no Florida impact fees, etc.). If you don't mind, I'm moving back to Ohio in about a month (yes, this may change), but please e-mail me ([email protected]) with your insight as to today's cost structure as you see it. I'm going to do nothing but Commercial Management / build / lease when I get home. I need an expert to get me in check. At first, I need to be able to properly evaluate building cost on newer existing centers I may want to buy / finish / lease. I see opportunity in overbuilt markets over the next 2 or so years. Also, if you don't mind, please share w/ me what you feel your end users / clients are paying for their management services. I have about $6 mil. in assets lined up for management already, but need to tripp. that ASAP.

Thank you!
Mark

got it!!!!!!!!!


Thanks,

Dan

Paradox, it cost a new client of mine close to $750,000 to build a new 2500 sq ft non-combustible warehouse building here on Long Island this past summer. That works out to about $280 sq ft. The high costs were as a result ofall the local building code requirements (sprinklers, various concrete inspections/tests, architect fees alone were $22,000, permits were $10K, environmental stuff). The cost of just the concrete slab floor alone was close to $90K and that was his lowest bid!