Insurance for artisan and hommes de toutes main in France?

Having successfully registered as an auto-entrepreneur business we were told that the next step was to arrange insurance. The work is classified under the heading Hommes Toutes Mains and we have approached several local insurance companies to get basic cover under responsabilité civile professionnelle. We referred them to the document BTP10, Petitis travaux du bâtiment - Hommes toutes mains et bricolage, July 2008, which lists legitimate activities. All seem horrified that one person can offer such a range of services and so far we have been unsuccessful in getting a single quote. Some are checking with their head office but nothing to date.

We registered at our local CFE office and were assigned 4332A - travaux de menuiserie bois et pvc, but this would only be one part of the work. If insurance was arranged to cover this aspect, what happens if a claim is made under a different job? Could you please advise on how we clarify exactly what insurance is required for an HTM and possibly where to get this?

We have both taken early retirement and I am registered as a conjoint collaborateur (for which we were told we would have to pay approximately 1.5 times the social charges) and don’t expect or want to earn much money from the business. We also don’t want to have to pay an insurance premium that will be more than our annual turnover.