Short term insurance recommendations

R

rob norton

Veteran
I'm shooting a project, wondering if anyone has any insurance recommendations.

Are there any film-centric insurance companies and are short term agreements common?

Thanks!
 
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Thank you Alex. I'm waiting to hear back from an agent.

This reddit thread mentions:

"be careful with “videography” or “photography” insurance. A lot of those places (like thimble and lemonade, etc) all have insane limits. They’re usually $4k an item. You could have $100k in coverage for rented items and $100k in coverage for owned items but they’ll still only payout $4k an item - so let’s say you rent an Alexa mini lf (valued at $80k) and you use your own fancy O’Connor fluid head (valued at $15k). Both things break. Well even though you had enough TOTAL coverage your awful insurance company has $4k item limits. Meaning you now owe the rental house $76k out of pocket and you’re out $11k on your fluid head. If that works for you then cool!

But you’ll really want insurance geared towards “entertainment risk” also known as production insurance (which can be just for equipment or you can do the whole 9 yards with gen liability and workers comp etc).

At the policy level, the good equipment insurance is usually called “inland marine”, “equipment floater”, or it’s part of a whole production package policy and is called “misc. rented equipment”. As a rental house I will not accept other forms of insurance - I want to see one of those 3 types."

But basically, it sounds like ideally:
- production insurance
- one of the three types recomended (inland marine, equipment floater, or miscellaneous. rented equipment)

Does that sound right?
 
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Athos caters to production, and knows how to do real production insurance. Lemonade’s main business is, I believe, renter’s insurance. Thimble’s is small business insurance.

You can easily set up an Athos quote online. It’s a few pages of questions, but they ask for pretty comprehensive information to get you the right quote.
 
Ya, Athos seems like a good bet and for sure better than Thimble and the like. But I'd also check with your rental house to ask what short-term insurance they accept. And they might be able to make a good recommendation. San Francisco isn't all that big a market (sigh), and the local rental houses tend to be friendly and helpful. (BTW - I have long-term insurance though a local broker and ultimately underwritten by The Hartford... I don't know much about short-term insurance).

So if you want to rent from Little Giant in San Francisco or Bolt in Berkeley, ask them. As an example, Luke Seerveld, a local gaffer and the Meet The Gaffer YouTube guy, points people looking for short-term insurance to United Agencies Insurance: https://www.seerveld.com/forms. (But I don't think Luke rents out his truck separate from him being hired...unless perhaps you're a gaffer personally known to him).
 
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Hey Rob! I did some brief online digging regarding your San Francisco shoot requirements. A caveat that I'm not intimately familiar with the specific laws California has that some other states do not, and of course it would be best to consult with a professional on tax matters, but this may still be relevant to you.

This comes via Google's built-in search AI model, so take it with a grain of salt. I know there at least a handful of people on here who are native to California, so maybe they can chime in with more experience on this matter.


When you act as the hiring entity for a production in San Francisco, you are legally required to classify the freelance gaffer as a W-2 employee. [1, 2]
While you (the videographer) may qualify for a "professional services" exemption under ⁠AB 2257, gaffers and general grip/electric crew do not have an exemption. Because lighting is essential to your video production business, the gaffer automatically fails Prong B of the ABC test and cannot legally be paid via 1099 as an individual contractor. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Compliant Ways to Handle the Hire
  • Entertainment Payroll Service: The most common compliant method. You utilize a third-party payroll provider (such as ⁠Wrapbook or ⁠Media Services) to act as the employer of record. They handle the W-2 onboarding, withholdings, and mandatory California workers' compensation insurance. [, 2, 3]
  • Business-to-Business (B2B) Exception: If the gaffer operates a formal business entity (like an LLC or S-Corp) with their own business license and commercial insurance, you can structure a contract between your business and theirs. They must bill you as a corporate entity rather than an individual.[1, 2]
  • The Freelance Worker Protection Act (FWPA): Under California's ⁠FWPA (effective January 2025), if you do use a legitimate B2B structure for any contractor service totaling $250 or more, you must provide a written contract before work begins and pay them within 30 days of completing services.[1, 2]

San Francisco Local Mandates
Operating in San Francisco introduces additional city-level requirements if you choose to process them directly on payroll rather than using an entertainment payroll service:
  • Paid Sick Leave: Employees earn 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked.
  • Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO): If your business scales to employ more than 20 people globally, you must make local healthcare expenditures for any employee working over 8 hours a week in the city.​
 
DustinSchmidt said:
Hey Rob! I did some brief online digging regarding your San Francisco shoot requirements. A caveat that I'm not intimately familiar with the specific laws California has that some other states do not, and of course it would be best to consult with a professional on tax matters, but this may still be relevant to you.

This comes via Google's built-in search AI model, so take it with a grain of salt. I know there at least a handful of people on here who are native to California, so maybe they can chime in with more experience on this matter.


When you act as the hiring entity for a production in San Francisco, you are legally required to classify the freelance gaffer as a W-2 employee. [1, 2]
While you (the videographer) may qualify for a "professional services" exemption under ⁠AB 2257, gaffers and general grip/electric crew do not have an exemption. Because lighting is essential to your video production business, the gaffer automatically fails Prong B of the ABC test and cannot legally be paid via 1099 as an individual contractor. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Compliant Ways to Handle the Hire
  • Entertainment Payroll Service: The most common compliant method. You utilize a third-party payroll provider (such as ⁠Wrapbook or ⁠Media Services) to act as the employer of record. They handle the W-2 onboarding, withholdings, and mandatory California workers' compensation insurance. [, 2, 3]
  • Business-to-Business (B2B) Exception: If the gaffer operates a formal business entity (like an LLC or S-Corp) with their own business license and commercial insurance, you can structure a contract between your business and theirs. They must bill you as a corporate entity rather than an individual.[1, 2]
  • The Freelance Worker Protection Act (FWPA): Under California's ⁠FWPA (effective January 2025), if you do use a legitimate B2B structure for any contractor service totaling $250 or more, you must provide a written contract before work begins and pay them within 30 days of completing services.[1, 2]

San Francisco Local Mandates
Operating in San Francisco introduces additional city-level requirements if you choose to process them directly on payroll rather than using an entertainment payroll service:
  • Paid Sick Leave: Employees earn 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked.
  • Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO): If your business scales to employ more than 20 people globally, you must make local healthcare expenditures for any employee working over 8 hours a week in the city.​
Click to expand...

This could also all be incorrect....again, AI. ^

So don't let me alarm you in any way. Just trying to do some more research to satisfy my own knowledge a bit as well.
 
DustinSchmidt said:
Compliant Ways to Handle the Hire
  • Entertainment Payroll Service: The most common compliant method. You utilize a third-party payroll provider (such as ⁠Wrapbook or ⁠Media Services) to act as the employer of record. They handle the W-2 onboarding, withholdings, and mandatory California workers' compensation insurance. [, 2, 3]
  • Business-to-Business (B2B) Exception: If the gaffer operates a formal business entity (like an LLC or S-Corp) with their own business license and commercial insurance, you can structure a contract between your business and theirs. They must bill you as a corporate entity rather than an individual.[1, 2]
  • The Freelance Worker Protection Act (FWPA): Under California's ⁠FWPA (effective January 2025), if you do use a legitimate B2B structure for any contractor service totaling $250 or more, you must provide a written contract before work begins and pay them within 30 days of completing services.[1, 2]
Click to expand...
Thanks Dustin! I was surprised how easy it is to learn with the latest AI iterations.

Anyway, I can dry hire a few pieces this time!
 
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