Can you make and sell soaps without insurance to family and friends legally?

If you want to make soap, then make soap. There is no law that you have to have insurance. Just understand the risk if you decide to move forward without it.

A business policy should not be that much money since your business is probly a small business. Are you running your business out of your home or apartment? If so, you can get a cheap business in the home policy. Are you making the soap yourself? That might cost more.

Make sure when you call for some insurance quotes you give details of your business to the insurance agent. A business in the home policy? Or a business tenant policy? And, did you make the soap or just sell it? The insurance agents needs details in order to give you the right kind of quote. It sounds like the agent did not get enough information to give you a proper or the right quote.

Call the insurance agent or company that carries your auto insurance policy first and see if they do business policies too. If you can not find an agent that writes your business, then move on to a broker. But start first with your auto insurance agent or company and give them the information they need.

There's no law that requires a business to purchase product liability coverage, flat out.

Not in any state.

But, if someone sues you because it causes a rash, you'll be on your own, with respects to legal fees.

Yes, someone can ALWAYS sue you if your product harms them in any way - even if they eat it. Even if they don't win the lawsuit, you'll be spending big bucks - possibly in excess of $50,000, to hire your defense lawyer. If you don't hire the lawyer - you'll lose the lawsuit, and could end up owing a LOT more than that. Even for a frivelous lawsuit. Remember that $5,000,000 judgement McDonalds got for serving hot coffee? Yeah, just like that.

Anyone -- including your family and friends -- can sue anyone for anything. Selling is selling, as far as the law is concerned. It doesn't matter if your customer is your mother or a complete stranger.

I would not recommend this line of business as the market is already saturated. Homemade soaps are avaliable for the tiny minority of consumers who want them. Everyone else just buys Zest or Ivory at the grocery store.

A search for "handmade soap" on eBay just now returned 7,111 results.

Any time you make a product for personal use on the body (such as soap) you open yourself up to all sorts of lawsuits, both real (an ingredient you may or may not have declared causes a reaction on somebody's skin) and imaged (you did nothing wrong, but they think it was your soap, its hard to disprove).