Insurance

NVentive

NVentive

Well-known member
I'm curious what everyone is doing for insurance on their indie jobs. I've been in the commercial video business for almost 15 years, have had basic biz insurance all that time w/no prob. Of course, there have been no claims, so of course there were no probs.
We had a grip accident on a shoot the other night, brought down a big Matthews stand on the hood of a new Mercedes we were using for a photo car for an experimental little indie film shoot. I saw it as a simple liability for our company, our underwriter didn't. The fact that it was someone else's property under our control made it an invalid claim, now we're out the hood for the Mercedes. Ouch...time to learn more about insurance.
 
NVentive said:
... have had basic biz insurance all that time w/no prob...

We had a grip accident on a shoot the other night, brought down a big Matthews stand on the hood of a new Mercedes we were using for a photo car for an experimental little indie film shoot. I saw it as a simple liability for our company, our underwriter didn't.
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I'd guess that whomever owned the Merc, should have been issued an insurance certificate prior to the work, with them listed as "loss payee" in the event their property was damaged while under your control. Your agent should have been aware of all the various conditions of your work.

"Basic biz insurance" can't possibly allow for coverage of all the variables with regard to set pieces, props, equipment, real estate, vehicles, etc.

All you need to do is lay out all possible scenarios, or at the very least the most likely ones to your agent in order to get adequate coverage.
 
Yeah....that's what we're finding out. The good news here is that our agent has joined the fray on our side, the underwriter has now said they will send an adjuster. Don't know if they'll follow thru, but at least it is progress.
 
Yeah, good luck with with it. Hopefully they can work it out for you. It's a good thing a crew member didn't get crushed :shocked:
 
Whew

Whew

Yeah -- my thoughts exactly! I've been doing this sort of thing for years, and although I've had stuff fall over from time to time I've never had anything like this. It's scary how quickly things can happen sometimes.....we all turned our backs at the same moment and ... yikes. The car took the hit, but it could have easily been any one of us. We'll be reviewing procedures, getting ourselves some more (larger)water bags, and meeting with our insurance people soon.
On a brighter side, we were notified today -- the underwriter will pay the claim. We dodged a bullet on this one.
 
Insurance is the biggest scam going, yes you need to carry a policy, but you also need to make sure you never have to use it. My dad had a construction business for years, which is obviously meant to cover damage to other people's property, which cost like $1000 a year for a million in liability. But if you go to an agent to get coverage for a short film, to rent some gear or something, they want like $500 for a weekend. They assume all films are made of money, when in reality the insurance would be more than your budget.









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dop16mm said:
But if you go to an agent to get coverage for a short film, to rent some gear or something, they want like $500 for a weekend. They assume all films are made of money, when in reality the insurance would be more than your budget.
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I'm not sure that rate is about "film." I'd guess a similar short term policy for an event would be about the same cost.

I just got a quote for 10 days of film liability coverage and it was $1,150. Then I got a quote for a full year of the same coverage for considerably less with workers comp as well.

Short term liability coverage is BS.

As for why we need liability coverage, it's not only about permits, it's about locations and it's about potential damage. Also, even if you have volunteers working on your film, you really should have workers comp because if they get hurt and you don't - bad things can happen.
 
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