Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

I am the system admin for Beauchamp McSpadden, an insurance company based out of Indiana.  I have been discussing Bitcoin with the owner of the company, and he decided that we could begin accepting bitcoin for insurance payments.  We sell nearly every form of insurance (home, auto, health, life, commercial, umbrella, equine, etc.) and are licensed in all states with the exception of Alaska.  Even if you are currently with a major carrier (Progressive for instance), you can transfer the policy to us and begin paying your premium via bitcoin. 

Our website (I am aware that it needs much work) is http://www.bmins.com, and I will be adding a section about bitcoin soon.

Our primary headquarters are at 231 W. Canal Street, Wabash, IN 46992, and our phone number is (260)563-8821.  I am looking for a few people to be our first bitcoin clients.  While I am a system admin and not a producer/CSR, it would be best to contact me via email at kerwin@bmins.com if you are interested, or extension 2192 as no one else has worked with Bitcoin yet (I hope to change that soon!).  I will get you in touch with one of our CSRs who will get the best insurance rate possible for you, and if it's worth it for you to switch, I'll send the premium invoices via Coinlab and the rest of the process will be identical to if you were paying with cash.

If this turns out to work well for everyone involved, I'll make the process more automated, but for now we would like to just work with a few clients to test the process.

Please let me know if you are interested, our rates are actually very good (at least in my experience, my dental/auto/life is with us).

Thank you for reading, if you have any advice (such as a better alternative to Coinlab), suggestions, or would like to receive a quote and possibly be one of the first clients, please let me know.

Ken Erwin - kerwin@bmins.com, 260-563-8821x2192  :)

History in the making right here ;D

Well done! This could be another entry in the Bitcoin history list of "firsts". A word of warning - the Bitcoin community moves fast. You'll need to get your Bitcoin acceptance logo and process in place quickly. In the short term someone like BitPay could act as a stopgap until you're able to go it alone.

Thank you for the advice!  I've already passed on several people to our CSRs and just had another meeting with the owner, it looks like I'm going to be going from system admin to producer pretty quickly so that I can help write the policies as well.  I'm doing as much research as possible to have the best process in place that we can.  Coinbase looked like the best option, however is Bitpay something that you would recommend instead?  We want it to be as easy as possible for the client, so if it's a little harder on our end thats ok.

Thank you again to everyone who has already contacted me!

Ken

We use BitPay and we recommend them. Great company!

It sounds like Bitpay is going to be our best option right now, so I think that's what we'll go with.  To everyone who has contacted me today, thank you!  I have a few people that I still need to respond to, however all of the CSR's for the Agency went home at 5:00PM.  Tomorrow morning I'll make sure everyone is replied to, and hopefully we'll write bitcoin's first insurance policy!   :)

Ken

Once you're launched you'll want to enter yourself onto the Bitcoin Wiki Business Listings (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade) page, it's a bit like a yellow pages for our growing merchant community. Lots of merchants forget to post there though, I had to remind Bitcoinin. ;3

Excellent! Glad to know you're entering into the Bitcoin economy. New businesses are always welcome.

ZIGGAP happens to be in the market for business liability insurance. It would be great if we could get this insurance from a provider in the Bitcoin ecosystem. I've left you a voicemail and look forward to your call soon.


Thanks!

https://BIPS.me is also a great service for accepting Bitcoins.

Wow. This is huge  :o

Awesome news!

This is awesome ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Consider this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=124441.0) too.

You know, it would be helpful if you actually looked at their website before you started posting links to warnings about starting a bitcoin business.

As far as I can tell, they are a business that is adding bitcoin support.

Please do your research first.

Vernon715 is correct, we've been around since 1872 (originally writing fire insurance policies, back then the fire departments were privatized and wouldn't put your house out unless it had fire insurance  :o ).  However I did find that link very useful, especially with the information about the Bitcoin WOT.  I'll be updating our website to show that we accept Bitcoin as soon as I get a chance.

Thank you for the advice so far!

I wanted to make sure that people understood that this isn't a new business.

This is so awesome. Do you guys provide insurance for Texas? Namely automotive and motorcycle liability. I don't need any insurance just yet, but I might give you guys a shout some time.

It'll really be something when insurance claims are paid out in Bitcoins, too!

Hi Sega!

Yes we do  :), hopefully sometime we can help you out.  If you ever end up needing anything feel free to email me at kerwin@bmins.com and I'll get you in touch with one of our personal lines CSR's.  Regarding the claims, that would truly be awesome someday. 

Ken

I dont know why no one has asked but can you insure bitcoins  :D

Any chance you are working in Canada? :D

Awesome! Congratulations!

I'm moving this as it belongs at the Announcements section, but feel free to post another thread here on offering insurance. Welcome!  :D

Thank you very much :D,

I went from wondering if anyone would be interested in purchasing insurance with bitcoin, to excited, beyond excited, and now entering a state of we-need-a-better website right NOW realization as the news has somehow even spread to Reddit.  I am finally going to bed now, I am sure I (and our CSRs) will be very busy tomorrow. 

Thank you for the support!

(Judging by the huge increase in traffic I may be upgrading our web server tomorrow as well)

Would a Bitcoin-paying customer be paid a claim in BTC or USD?

He's still a random user with no Bitcoin involvement, no WoT etc. The stuff in there applies to him, and let me quote for your benefit:


Please, stop thinking you're exceptional. It's too common by now.

Do you offer insurance for lenders against default of borrowers? :-)

Good morning!

I'm working on generating the key for WoT right now (I apologize for not getting this done beforehand).  @Gab in Canada, unfortunately right now we are only licensed in the U.S., but hopefully this will change :).  To GGGGG, claims will be paid out in US $, I apologize to anyone who would rather have claims paid in Bitcoins, however legally that would be impossible.  And lastly @molecular, that would be nice :) but we don't offer anything to protect against defaulting lenders.  Most of our lending insurance is related to E&O coverage (errors and omissions).

Ken

Why? I don't think that's the case.

Hmm.  I will look into it.  For now we will be paying claims out in US.  I'm worried that if we had a large claim, that it would be difficult to obtain enough coins to pay out in full, however perhaps it is something we could look into in the future.  The other aspect would be making sure that legally we can show that we paid the claim, and I'm not sure if that's possible yet with Bitcoin but I'll check with the owners to find out more about it.

Thank you for the suggestion!

Great service to offer the growing bitcoin community! I think next year you will be busy explaining this to other insurers as they take note of your profits.

I sure hope so!

In regards to Bitcoin WoT, here is my public key: D3B2229A607C4CFD, my username on the web IRC is kenerwin88, and I registered a new bitcoin address with it (1DQLDDupqrgyobzatk8xfWY3uPnHZYKhYX).  To the people who recommended WoT, what is the best way for me to establish trust with the Bitcoin community, and should I be adding my public key to my signature?  Thanks!

Ken Erwin

A small discussion on the 'trust' issue: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152456.0

Your company has an edge on trust already. I see you have an A+ rating from the BBB and some award from a professional organization. If I can buy via your website then I trust you already, as I assume you would not destroy your business to get a few bitcoins.
 

Yes, this.

Hey, I'm getting a dead link when requesting the PDF for a rate quote.
The link is on the auto policy page, where it says.

"Request a FREE quote today!
Click here "

I am interested in seeing your options.

this. it's a 404 error


(i just got my renewal notice from geico today..maybe instead i can go with bitcoin)

Hi RodeoX,

Is this the link that you were getting? http://bmins.com/linked%20files/PL-HA.pdf

I just added bitcoin to our payments page (http://bmins.com/payments.html), more of a placeholder at the moment.  I was able to open the rate quote form, however it looks like the submit button is broken >_<.  I'll get it fixed ASAP.  In the meantime I can get some quotes for you if you email either a declarations page/policy (if you already have an insurance policy) or for auto:

The VIN numbers of each vehicle
Year
Make
Model

Your First & Last Name, DOB & Drivers License Number.

If you would feel better talking on the phone, our 800 number is (888)460-4478.  I'm at extension 2192.

I'll try to get the website fixed asap.  We're working on a new design that will replace the ancient layout we currently have (We've had the same look for probably the last decade).

Thank you again everyone!

Ken  :)

Thank you sir. The link you posted here woks for me. I'll look it over tonight.

Ahh I figured it out.  I'm trying to move our webserver to Nginx (linux) from IIS (Windows) and I think some of the DNS records or some setting on the new server needs to be fixed.  http://bmins.com is working correctly, while http://www.bmins.com isn't.  I'll have this resolved ASAP, just trying to deal with the new traffic.  Thank you for letting me know!

I will definitely switch my home owner's insurance. Although my house payments are currently escrowed, I would be willing to drop the escrow and pay everything separately if I can pay the insurance with BTC.

I already contacted my loan provider and, as I suspected, they are not willing to even entertain taking payments in bitcoin.

And I know there is no way I will be able to pay property taxes with bitcoins.

I pay a lot in home insurance since I am on the Gulf of Mexico.

Hi Elwar (And anyone else that wants a quote on homeowner's insurance),

If you email at kerwin@bmins.com the following, I can get a quote for homeowner's insurance for you  :)

Name,
Address,
Current Company if you already are with someone,
Deductible,
County,
Acreage,
Responding Fire Dept,
Approx distance from nearest fire hydrant,
Last update on Roof, Furnace, Wiring, Plumbing
Any scheduled items (jewelry etc)
Finished Basement: yes or no
Wood Stove: y/n
Pool: y/n (if yes, is it fenced? does it have a diving board?)
Trampoline: y/n
Pets: y/n (if yes, which breeds)

For anyone that wants a quote for either auto insurance or homeowners, if you would rather print a PDF and fill it out, here are the forms:
http://bmins.com/forms/homeowner.pdf (http://bmins.com/forms/homeowner.pdf)
http://bmins.com/forms/auto.pdf (http://bmins.com/forms/auto.pdf)

Also, you can get discounted insurance when being quoted for both.  I'll try to get an automated form set up on our website to make it easier to obtain a quote.  I apologize for how it looks right now, this is the most traffic we've ever gotten from our website.

Thanks again everyone  :),

Ken