Broker asked about inland marine coverage, so I said nothing

Inland marine is the line that covers property you own while it's away from your own premises, so furniture in transit or installed at a client's house. Your general liability won't touch it, that's third party. Your commercial property policy usually covers contents at the scheduled location, meaning your warehouse, and stops there. So the broker asked the right question.

The number to get straight before you buy is the per-occurrence limit versus your total inventory value, because if you have four packages out at once you're exposed for all four, not one.

Also ask whether the policy pays replacement cost or actual cash value on the inventory. Actual cash value on a four year old sofa that's been installed a dozen times is close to nothing, and replacing it costs what a sofa costs today.

On licensing, staging itself generally isn't a licensed activity. Some states do restrict who can call themselves an interior designer or use the title, which is a title issue and varies state to state, so check your own state board before you print business cards. If you ever start advising on price or marketing the property, that's where you drift toward real estate license territory, again state specific.

The certificate of insurance question comes up faster than you'd think. Agents and builders often want to be named as additional insured before you're allowed on site, and some HOAs and condo buildings won't let a truck at the loading dock without one. Ask your broker how quickly he can turn those around, because a slow certificate means a missed install date.

On the vacant house piece, does the seller's own vacancy clause matter to you? I read that a lot of homeowner policies cut coverage once a place has been empty past 30 or 60 days, which would mean nobody's insurance is really on your sofa at that point except yours.