hiya! i've searched the forums here and came across a few posts dealing w/ this, but nothing w/ conclusive info...

do most of you smaller web hosting business owners/workers have some sort of business and/or liability insurance?

i.e. customer's account gets hacked, a credit card leaks, and you (the hoster) get lawyers knocking at the door?

if so, how much does such coverage run?

thx, i *really* look forward to your replies!
-der bubble

Most of the hosts have a statement where the customer must agree that:

"ABC HOST SHALL NOT BE LIABLE, for any damages, file loss, inavailability of service, outdated info, deeds done by god, or any sort of liabilities between the service provide to the customer. The customer, by ordering, hereby agrees where ABC HOST shall, will, and can not be held liable for anything."

(Made up by me)

-Something like that :)

While there is a great deal of truth to the above, should your colocated server catch fire and destroy a rack of servers I would bet you likely would have several lawyers knocking on your door. In this case insurance is a very good idea.

If your a small company, a lawyer is only going to go after you if there is no money...and if you are a small company that means you can get the assets of the company down to ZERO quite fast. Then all they will be sueing for is a few paper clips...

It really depends as you grow, the larger you get then it would become more viable for insurance and also most cost effective as you can just dump hundreds or thousands of dollars as easily as a few thousand.

Also make sure you are NOT operating as a sole propriator, then everything is up for grabs, your house, car, kids eduction funds...not good...