Any company operating at a third-party venue or location has much to prepare for. From securing proper licensing and permits to transporting equipment and protecting film crews on the site, many things can go wrong at any point along the way.
This is why carrying comprehensive insurance coverage is essential, and among the various types of protection, production liability insurance is one of the most important.
Without proper liability insurance, your company could be on the hook for significant medical bills or legal fees if a lawsuit arises from accidents at a venue. Additionally, many locations will only work with businesses with sufficient insurance coverage.
Discover the ins and outs of production liability insurance and its role in mitigating the risks at the venues and locations where your business takes you.
What Does Production Liability Insurance Do?
Production liability insurance is a more focused type of general liability protection, specifically addressing film productions and similar business actions at a third-party site. General liability comprises two primary prongs of defense: bodily injury and property damage.
Thus, production liability insurance can cover the expenses if your production causes a third party to damage their property or sustain an injury while you are at a venue or location. These may include legal fees should your production company be sued, or they can come from medical expenses and rehabilitative costs to enable recovery after an injury.
Production liability insurance does not cover your employees; this is the role of workers’ compensation insurance. Liability insurance is an essential tool in an overarching broad-spectrum series of coverages for your business.
Most Common Venue and Location Risks
While the potential risks posed by your business’ work at a venue or location will vary based upon what tasks you are engaging in there and the venue itself, some threats are more common than others. The most frequent claims filed to production liability insurance include:
Trips and Slips
Due to a recently mopped floor or an electrical cord attached to your rigging, trips and falls can cause severe injury. It only takes one small snag to cause someone to hit their head on a hard floor or the edge of a table, resulting in catastrophic damage that requires a visit to the emergency room.
With production liability insurance, the costs of such treatment are covered, as are the resultant legal fees, should the third party choose to sue your company for their role in the injury.
Damaged Customer or Venue Property
Film productions require creative thinking and the use of myriad products and equipment that may accidentally damage the things around them. If your camera rig dents a wall or a stunt results in a fire breaking out, general liability insurance will cover the cost of repairing the damage for the venue.
Electrical Harm
Productions require numerous electrical resources, from cameras and microphones to lighting systems. If a production company’s electrical equipment malfunctions or puts too much strain on a single outlet, it can cause an electrical fire. Production liability insurance can cover repairing any damage your electrical equipment causes.
Heavy Equipment Injury
The machinery used during film production is typically heavy and awkwardly shaped, like camera rigs and booms. This makes accidental damage easy when navigating a venue. Production liability insurance can pay for any damage your heavy equipment does to a location during your work so that your company does not have to address the cost from its pocket.
How Production Liability Insurance Fits into an Overarching Insurance Strategy
While production liability insurance is one of the most important insurance coverage (and many venues will not allow you to shoot there without it), it is just one part of a comprehensive protection strategy for your business.
Significant risks such as employee injury, damage to your equipment, and potential copyright issues are just a few of the other challenges your company may face, and each can be covered by an insurance policy tailored to that risk. Be sure to work with an insurance agency that can customize your protection to suit the chances you will likely face.
Get Complete Insurance Protection from MFE Insurance
Whether your production company regularly works with third-party venues or you are approaching this collaboration for the first time, it is important to utilize the experience of professionals to create customized insurance coverage that addresses your needs without exceeding your budget.
The experts at MFE Insurance collaborate with production companies regularly to develop comprehensive production liability insurance coverage alongside other protections. Contact MFE Insurance to schedule an appointment.