[El Conquistador]

The spate of solo builders untimely deaths and disasters (health and otherwise) cannot be good for the custom order luthier business. Reports of these things on forums like this can be a very powerful argument against a solo custom buid.

This got me to thinking. (Actually, Riorider first mentioned this idea.) Is there some way to reduce the risk to a potential client of losing all her/his funds to some unforseen tragedy, or at least, avoiding the huge frustration of long overdue orders even though commissions have already been paid?

Typically, a solo builder is living, at least to some extent, hand-to-mouth as it were. Any funds that come in are usually spent for supplies for upcoming builds. So, there is very little, if any, financial cushion for some unplanned event, let's say something as simple as the luthier's spouse loses her job meaning the loss of family income along with the families health benefits. Not to mention a serious illness, or, as we have seen, even the death of a builder.

So, wouldn't it be a good thing if a solo builder could guarantee that an unforseen disaster would not result in the loss of a client's funds?

I know that life insurance companies are required to all pay into a State pool of funds as a requirement to actually sell their policies in that state. The idea is, if one of the member companies were to go out of business, which does happen, then their customers would be made financially whole by the fund.

I am suggesting that a model like this could work very well for solo builders. A solo builder could contribute a very small percentage, say 1%, of each sale into a pooled fund. Then, if something horrible were to happen to that builder, any client that had deposits with that builder would be made whole by the fund.

Since contributing to a fund like this could clearly not be made mandatory for all builders, the carrot for a builder to participate in such a fund is the ability to advertise his membership in the fund, and thus, reduce any potential clients angst over losing her/his money.

There is no doubt that the devil would be in the details which would need to be worked out. For instance, when the fund reaches a certain level, then no more funds would need to be contributed until the funds need to be re-pleated.

Just food for thought. Perhaps an exercise in molehill to mountain conversion, but worth a conversation IMHO.

Steve