To rent equipment and to attain filming permits you need insurance. I'm curious to know where you guys go for insurance. Are there companies that specialize in business-related/production insurance? And can you purchase per-day insurance policies?

Nobody here has ever gotten insurance for a shoot?

I wouldn't do a shoot without insurance.
Unless... I'm working as a one man band with my own equipment.
But, even I require my clents to provide a certificate of insurance to cover my gear.

If I hire a crew, rent equipment, rent a stage, location etc... I have a minimum of (1 million) liability insurance to cover any loss. This is required by all equipment rental houses. I also provide workmans comp insurance in case a crew member is injured.

This insurance is very expensive, But I just roll it into the cost of the production. The cost is based on your production budget.
I purchase it on a job by job basis.

I hope this helps.

Thanks Stephen! Which company do you use for your insurance? I found a ton of companies on Google who specialize in production insurance... some of them look legit and some don't.

Thanks again for the info.

Google is a good place to start in finding an agent in your area.

The big underwriter is Lloyds of London. But really expensive.

The Chapman Group LLC is in the Dallas area. I use them when I can.
They may be able to give you the name of an agent in the DC/Baltimore area.

tom@chapmangroup.com

If you're going to do a lot of production throughout the year you might consider an annual policy. It might save you some money vs. a policy on a job by job basis. In the past I have been tagged with an anti-terrism rider when I shoot in NYC. I don't know if that's still true or not. It may be true for the DC area as well.

Take the time to shop around. It will save you some bucks.
Good luck.

In the past I have been tagged with an anti-terrism rider when I shoot in NYC. I don't know if that's still true or not. It may be true for the DC area as well.

I give up, what's that for? In case an anti-terrorism squad shoots you by accident?

It's just another way for the insurance companies to make more money.

I was asked if I would be shooting in Manhattan or the NYC mtropolitan area.
I said I was shooting all over the area including Manhattan, New Jersey & Westchester County.
The agent told me that on the days I would be in the NYC metropolitan area I would have to pay an added "fee" because of the threat of terrorism in the area. This was 3 years after 9/11.

I called a producer friend in NYC and she told me this was just an added cost of doing business in NYC post 9/11.

I guess it doesn't fall under the "Act of God" catagory.

Thanks. So its not added coverage, just added cost (because they can).

Marshall Entertainment Insurance in Orlando, reasonable rates for most any production.

If you are doing a big crew shoot in Florida, you need to have insurance, no doubt. But insurance companies in general blow!

Thanks. So its not added coverage, just added cost (because they can).

It is added coverage... in the event of a terrorist attack.
That you have to pay for. (not justified IMO)
Or... you won't get production insurance shooting in NYC.
As was my experience 08/05.

Hi, I bought a $1500 camera, and probably 1000-1500 worth of accessories.

I got robbed recently and lost $1500 of various electronics (although none of my video equipment for some reason).

I have renter's insurance, so I had some coverage. But if I'm out on a shoot somewhere, I don't know whether renter's insurance would apply.

I'm still an independent (i.e, not making any money), but that could conceivably change. it won't be a primary income source. Still, theft of video equipment on the road could really devastate me.

How do you handle the security question? What precautions can I take? What sort of insurance options are available? What shooting situations tend to be the most fraught with danger?

Off the top of my head, my solution would be to make sure I don't shoot alone, but always have someone with me. And leave things in the trunk as much as I can. (But if someone breaks into my car/trunk? Is that typically covered by renter's insurance)?

Robert Nagle

There have been multiple threads about this which will come up when you do a search.

In general, (and this is how I covered myself), you can get a rider for certain items from your insurance provider that is part of your homeowners or even renters insurance. The insurance company will already have a value for the equipment or an equivalent providing you have proof of ownership. Obviously, you pay an extra fee on top of your premium for these items.

The other issue to research is whether it is commercial or non-commercial. These riders are meant to cover the average homeowner who wants to protect their laptop or personal camera equipment, not someone who uses it as their primary source of income.

As for security, by all means shoot with a trusted partner. No security system in the world can protect something that isn't watched.

Yeah, the only real answer to your question is "talk to your insurance agent." I did and they researched it; in my case they said equipment would not be covered if it was being used for business purposes, and my homeowners policy maxxed out at $5,000 anyway.

Give your agent all your info and ask them to recommend the proper policy. In my case I think I'm paying about $200 annually to cover $15,000 worth of equipment. In previous threads others have reported even better deals. In my case, I wanted to be sure I was covered when traveling out of the US so that might have been a factor in the cost.

Boyd,

That seems like a good rate. Who are you insured with? BTW, I believe it's best to pay for full replacement value insurance rather than depreciated value since it's likely new gear you'll be buying if stuff is stolen.

I have all my gear covered thru RVNuccio (a broker) who places policys with Firemens Fund. Including a million in liability covering about 30k in gear my rate is about $400 per year. I asked my HO policy agent whom I've been with for 25 years (covers cars also) and they wouldn't touch the gear either as a rider or a business, so I went to another insurance company but they were kind of high and wanted all of my insurance so after a few years with them I went to Nuccio. So far so good, of course I haven't filed a claim but I feel pretty good sinces it's with Firemens Fund.

RVNuccio.com

Don B

Boyd,

That seems like a good rate. Who are you insured with?

I went to my State Farm agent since I already had auto, homeowners and liability policies through them. But honestly, I didn't even shop around so you might be able to do better.

Hi Everyone,

I have a question. I'm thinking about going through a rental company to acquire equipment for a short I'll be doing. The question I have is in regards to insurance. Do rental companies typically offer their own policy if you don't have an external service? How much would they charge on say . . . a $700 order? Thanks!

Matthew Overstreet

Hey Matthew.

Some rental companies offer their own independent insurance coverage, but not all. The cost will vary depending on the cost of your rental, and the peroid of you rental. I would guess it would be in the neighbor hood of $100 for a week.

Just to give you an idea of the cost, I rented $2200 worth of equipment in Los Angeles for a week, and the cost for insurance was $200.00. not to bad.

Hope this helps.
Cody Mielke
http://www.guerillarentals.com

It does indeed depend upon the rental house. The place I rent from will allow non-insurance holders to either purchase coverage from them, or if the amount of rental is low enough they will charge a deposit to your credit card which is immediately refunded upon return. The also give me a discount since the rental fee is prepaid on the credit card.

If you're just doing a one weekend short and shooting mini-dv you can probably go this route. I think the cut off is like 5000 or so.

I've actually worked with several rental companies that handle it this way. One you basically had to do a credit app with them.

There are ways around paying for the insurance though. If you are at all concerned about loss, theft or significant damage you should go with the insurance.

It's glad to hear that it doesn't cost THAT much. I just wanted a rough estimate that I could put on my budget outline. Thank you.

Hello,

Being a new owner of the HD100, I am looking for insurance for my camera package.

So far I've found a company called RV Nuccio & Associates. They are in LA and they are registered with the California Insurance Comission. They seem legit but has anyone had to file a claim with them?

Are there any better or cheaper insurance companies for my gear?


Thanks.
Scott

See the following:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=60744
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=59436

Scott,

I know you are insuring a HD100, but I moved this to "Taking Care of Business," because equipment insurance applies to everything.

How do you insure your equipments, the camera, the steadicam...?

I read my renter insurance contract, and apparently they only insure 10% of my properties when they are not at my place.
So I'm trying to see if I could get a insurance at a reasonable price.

Any advices?

Thanks,
Best Regards,
Quoc

Some use a company like State Farm others like myself use a broker like RVNuccio who places policys thru Firemans Fund and gives me $1 million is liability and covers ALL of my gear that I take out on jobs for a nominal fee per year.

Search around you'll find some good and some not so good deals out there.

Don

Wranglers!!!!!!!! maybe you can move this to a place where it would get more play-I thinks we be in the wrong place ;-)

Don

Hi Quoc, I moved your thread to our business forum where insurance has been discussed frequently do a search here for more info. Another thing to consider, your homeowners/renters insurance probably won't cover any equipment used for business purposes... talk to an agent for the full story.

Thank you for the info.

Best Regards,
Quoc

What is the best way to get your camera insured against damage/disaster? I bought the extended warranty, but my work involves a lot of scenarios where my camera may be more exposed than I'd like.

I'm looking into starting a small production company and going with small business insurance, but I haven't heard anything back from my friend about that, and I'd liek to make sure the camera is insured in the meantime.

Hi Jason,

This discussion would be a better fit in our business forum since it has nothing to do with the brand of camera. Have a look at the following for starters:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=60744
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=59436
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=53920
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=10475

We are currently renting a home, and I'm using one room as an office. The property manager has no problem with it, but insists I have some sort of insurance. I can't figure out why, as I don't have clients in, and won't be doing any shoots on the property.

So, what kind of policy should I look for in Florida? Any ideas?

Jason,

Some quick advice:

- Make sure you get a commercial-type of insurance policy. Homeowners or renters insurance is very limited in it's scope of coverages especially when it comes to liability and loss outside of your residence or personal vehicle.

- Zurich is a company that I've been dealing with for years. My policy has a 5 million liability rider and about $120,000 worth of umbrella coverage. The cost is about $1500 a year. This is an average. Hartford is another great company with stellar ratings but the same coverage with them will set you back about $3000 a year.

- If you plan on making a business out of your video work then you should get a corporation setup of some sort, either LLC, S, or C. Ask your CPA or family attorney which is best suited to your needs. The main reason for doing this, is in the event somebody sues you - over anything - that you have a separation of assets. This would prevent losing your home and car in event of a lawsuit, otherwise everything you own would be fair game in a judgement against you.

So really, you need two kinds of insurance: Protection for your professional equipment against loss, damage or theft and lawsuit protection.

Robert, what type of insurance do you have with Zurich? is it a small business policy? i need to get insurance for a shoot and it seems that getting a yearly policy is better. thanks for the advice.

Hi all,

I am looking to get insurance for a single Canon XL2, used in commercial video production and not rented out or loaned to others. Anyone from the UK got any recommendations for a decent company that might offer this kind of cover?

Cheers.

Ian . . .

Sorry this isn't a recommendation, rather a warning that if you want cover on just one item the insurers will probably have a minimum premium which will make it relatively expensive.

Do you have any other business insurance policies which you can add it on to?

Good point. My other insurance policies are for liability not kit. This is actually the first time I have owned the camera myself - previously I've used a camera that was owned by a regular client (and a generous one at that!) and that was covered under their policy.

Foolish and reckless as I am, I never bothered to insure lighting, grip, audio etc. Individually, the items are relatively inexpensive and are covered (with a wee element of white lying) on my home contents insurance. The camera, though, at nearly three grand . . .

Funny how spending your own money on something sharpens the sense of caution!

Ian, you'll probably find the cheapest way is to add the camera as a named item on your household contents insurance.

Okay - I have all of my equipment including cameras, cranes, dollies, computers, etc...I also rent a house and it is all stored here. Where should i go for insurance for all of this stuff. What do you guys do? It is making me nervous traveling around to shoots and not having any insurance yet.

I have very good luck with RVNuccio.com. It's all on line and they place policies thru Firemans Fund which is a very large insurance group. you can also get liability thru them. They're pretty reasonable.

Don B.

State farm also does this, surprisingly. I had a policy with them a while ago, and then let it lapse 'cause I found out that they apparently didn't support using gear for business purposes, (even though they'd said they did when I explicitly asked them).


So I just got renters insurance, and got a new personal articles policy (this is what covers your gear), and for some reason, now it's okay that I use the gear for business. Around $15K of stuff insured for about $200 a year.

Ok, scratch that. I got a call from them yesterday saying the underwriters didn't wanna do it. . .thought it was too risky, and I got a quote for $330 a year for $12K of gear under their commercial policy. I dunno if I'll go for it.

For about the same money you can get your gear covered AND get $1mm in liability thru Nuccio. I don't work for them but I do "shill" for them as they have been the fairest price wise I've seen in a long time. Do I know how good they are in a claim? No because I haven't had to file a claim EVER with any insurance company in over 20 years. Just luck I guess but if you use common sense and are just a bit vigilant there is a better than even chance you will never have to file a claim either BUT...I digress;-)

RVNuccio seems to me at this time to have the best thing going maybe I'm wrong.

Don

Yeah, I saw that. . .

Looks like I could get all my gear covered for around $250? Crazy!


The thought of itemizing everything again makes me groan, however. Do they really need dates purchased and all that? I was kinda younger and dumber in those days, and didn't save most receipts.

Get the month and year as close as possible and you should be OK. Itemizing is a pain but it's the only way to be accurate. What I had done was to go thru all my stuff, write down what it is, the serial number and then the month and year purchased on a legal pad so when I was typing the form(s) it went pretty quick.

Good Luck,

Don

Luckily, when I didn't know state farm was gonna shaft me, I went through all my gear and wrote down serial numbers and whatnot. So I have most of the info, just not dates purchased. I could maybe give year. . .no idea what month most of of this stuff was.

i've invested in a mac book pro, hvx200, and a still camera this past year. i'm looking into renting out the hvx, and i know i'll be using my laptop as a field monitor-leaving it open to damage.

my question is how have you guys gotten your equipment insured? do you rent out your equipment? i have about $12000 worth of equiptment i'd like to get insured, is that enough?

thanks for your help.

joe.

Welcome to DVinfo Joseph. I've moved this thread to our business forum. The insurance question has been discussed pretty thoroughly in the past, see the following threads:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=60744
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=59436
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=53920
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=10475

Since you plan to rent out your camera you are definitely operating a business. Be sure to tell this to your agent since it will have an effect on the type of coverage required. Probably also a good idea to discuss with your tax accountant.

I've been trying to find reasonably priced insurance (equipment and liability) for a reasonable price in Canada.

The best I can get is $1295.00 a year. That covers $13k wort of equipment and $500k worth of liability. With a $1k deductible. Pretty basic coverage for that price.

I've called WEVA, as they have group insurance rates, and they don't offer insurance to Canadians yet.

Anybody know of any specialty insurers that would offer coverage?

Thanks.

Best option is to get a rider policy on your home insurence, I got something on mine with state farm and only pay $300 or so. You pay double for business. This covers anything from droping it in a river to theft.

hope this helps

Michael

Michael,

I've had brokers looking all over for me, they tell me if I was doing it for a hobby it's OK, but pro... Also, I've got the H1, which is about 12k CDN to replace. My homeowners policy would only cover me for up to 5k worth of camera gear.

I'll try State Farm though.

Thanks,

Ken.

TD/Canada Trust, VanCity, to name a couple. As mentioned, you get a rider on your home/apt insurance. Vancity are brokers, so they'll find the cheapest rate. That would probably be ING Direct as the insurer. TD would be just slightly more. Also check out PC Financial (SuperStore).