A friend (wasn’t sure if I can name you?) sent me something fascinating. Here’s the story:
It appears that a whole new issue is coming up for bloggers and online content/freelance writers. A few contacts and I have been getting requests for freelance writing and writing for pay on company blogs, but we require errors/omissions insurance. I (as well as two others) have been turned down by the underwriters because they went back and read our blogs and say the content is “error prone and not subject to verification”. HUA??? It’s a BLOG. Anyhow, we are all really stuck right now because while we’ve got business insurance, we can’t obtain E/O underwriting. Maybe your readers can help out? How can we approach these antiquated firms and get insurance? Personally I don’t even think they should read our blogs and make a judgement. My husband has O/E insurance for software coding he does, and the insurance company has never once asked to look at his code. I’m finding that turning blogging/social media outreach into somewhat of a business, we can’t be taken seriously. One door opens, another closes.
Depends on the Blog, Obviously
My comments don’t reflect the person who asked this question. Take that off theif y table. I’m talking about the space in general.
If you’re looking to blog professionally, your reference blog should also be professional. For instance, if you’re bringing all the fun of BLARMCast, which is obviously a tongue-in-cheek (and oft-times fun) podcast/blog by a relative of mine, would you recommend that our resident @Wankergirl (her name on Twitter) use that site to show what would make her the best person to produce the CBC’s next great show?
Yes and no.
If you’re looking to recreate what you do on a professional site, then you want them to get the full breadth of what you do.
If you need to show a professional face, you have to model that in the reference product.
But Errors and Omissions Insurance?
Wow, if I had to be factually accurate all of the time, I’d quit blogging. It’s not that I’m not into research and factual accuracy. I just don’t know if that’s the space my blog plays in the world. My blog, at least, is about opinion, mostly. It’s about my advice and my ideas and a lot of “my.”
And finally, how can you advise my friend here, who has a real problem that needs solving? How does she get this insurance? What’s next?
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