Picking Up The Pieces by Marcia Case Menendez

After having done art and craft fairs for 10 plus years I decided it was time to be a grown up. After some scary storms at a couple of shows in recent years, I felt it was time to get insurance. 

  I looked at the policies that were offered through ACT simply because I saw their ad on Facebook and it looked easy enough. 

  I signed up for the 3 month policy reasoning I could use 2 of those and it would be cheaper than doing a full year, since I do not do shows year round. That should be sufficient. 

  With my printed card in my wallet, I’m off to do a show in KCMO.  The next month I am scheduled to be at Art Outside Schlafly a three day art show at a great St. Louis brewery. This is one of my favorite shows largely because my husband comes along to help and maybe drink a beer or two as well as being a fun show with a buying public. 

  The weekend was forecasted to be hot and have some rain mainly on Saturday. It is a very long show with hours running until 10:00 pm. We managed to make it through the day without any rainfall and at 10 pm there was only a 35% chance of rain. The sky looked clear as my husband and I started the 15 minute walk to our Airbnb. 

  At about 1 am we could hear rain and hail and lots of thunder, but I didn’t hear wind. My husband briefly woke up and asked me if I had re-attached the weight to one of the legs of my canopy. I assured him I had and we were good. My canopy was a good sturdy Light Dome. There were bottom stabilizer bars and corner stabilizer bars as well as 50 lbs pvc weights on each leg. I slept soundly knowing my canopy was solid. After all, last year my husband, booth neighbor, and myself waited out a storm in my booth. I just knew it was good. (You see where I am going with this, don’t you?) 

  I awoke at about 6 am on Sunday and looked at my email. There was an email from the show coordinator saying the the show had been canceled for Sunday. The email went on to say that a massive pop up storm hit the showgrounds from 1-3 am. Many booths we damaged and to please get to the brewery as quickly as possible. The line from that email that remains in my mind is,”Upon entering the grounds, please remain calm.” That did it for me. I called a friend who was already at the show and asked her how it looked. She told me it was not good and that I should prepare myself. She was kind enough to send me a picture. Looking at the picture she sent, I couldn’t help but think she’s got it wrong, there’s nothing there. 

  After arriving at the showgrounds, we found my booth to be mostly gone with only my cooler and toolbox in the actual booth area. My canopy itself, was two rows behind our row and upside down kind of in a tree. 

  We took down the canopy and picked up what we could the show promoters as well as the artists were in shock. We did all band together and get our booths cleaned up. 

  In the car on the way home my first call to ACT was made. Being a holiday weekend, I left a message and expected a call on Tuesday. When Tuesday came, I again called them around 11 am. An office person I spoke with told me she would leave a message for an adjuster to call me. In the meantime, she sent me a form to fill out to get the claim started. I explained to her what had happened and she said she didn’t know if I would be paid for an, “Act of God”. (First red flag) she did say she was not an adjuster and only worked in the office, so I should speak to the adjuster in 1-3 business days when they call me back. I asked her if I could just email the form she had sent me as an attachment on her email to which she said, ”Yes”, and I promptly did so. 

  By day three I still had not heard from an adjuster and some of the other artists I had sent the form to had. So I again called them. This time they had no record of my email. The person I spoke with was nice though and I resent it as I was speaking to him. He verbally confirmed he had received it and sent an email confirmation saying the same. He told me it would be next week before I heard from an adjuster.(Second red flag) So I waited…

  The next week I did receive a call from a third party insurance company who handles the insurance itself.  Jyl from Great American Risk Solutions, informed me my policy was liability only and would not cover any damage to my canopy, display, or inventory. I was flabbergasted. 

  As I went back and looked at my policy, I saw it was for liability only. When I signed up it never really occurred to me that it would be anything other than full coverage. Several of my other artist friends told me they had done the 3 month policy for several years and didn’t know that as well. The full year policy pays for personal damage, I believe. 

  I’m upset with myself for rushing the process, not paying attention, and being cheap. However, I do feel like this is probably how they make a large amount of their money. I will definitely get the year long insurance now, but probably not through ACT. So, the moral of the story is, pay attention, take the time to research the whole process, and shop around. People always go see the whole show before they start making their purchases, why should we be any different?

 

 I wish I had taken more pictures of the clean up process. I was lucky and had 3 people who came and helped me with this. It took about 2 hours to get it all packed up. It still took two vehicles to get it all home. Getting my stuff to a show is all done in a precise jigsaw puzzle manner in my truck. Packing up after the storm was a challenge just to find the pieces, many which are lost forever.

Article by Marcia Case Menendez

Juried BOMH Fiber Artist