The Juice On Commercial Production Insurance
Commercial production insurance can cover the whole breadth of entertainment productions – ranging from film production to TV shows. Any attempt to define entertainment insurance like a life insurance policy will run into an oversimplification. No, it’s not just a simple case of life and death, i.e., you die, your family claims. It’s more about minimizing the risk of loss, injury or death during the filming and entertainment commercial creation. If minimizing risks doesn’t prevent an actual loss while filming the commercial, the entertainment insurance policy becomes a buffer against financial losses. Commercial production insurance has its roots in the history of Hollywood itself. In fact, you can say that entertainment insurance is a twin industry of the film industry – no producer is going to approve a movie, television show or commercial without an insurance policy in place.
It makes sense – producing a commercial or a movie costs a lot of money, and anything can happen during production – a no-show by an actor, damage to equipment…. The list can go on. Commercial production insurance had downtime after the September 11 bombings. This was because the slowing of the economy led to less advertising and commercial filming. Now, the ice-freeze on commercial production insurance is thawing as more and more people are watching commercials on TV shows.
Insurance underwriters to are being drawn to the seduction of insuring mega-celebrities and providing E&O insurance for film studio executives to cover lawsuits stemming from commercials. The premiums on celebrity insurance and E&O insurance are invariably higher than an all-risk film or commercial production insurance policy, although they are not necessarily more profitable. The cost of an actor’s bad behavior can cost millions overnight – but that really doesn’t stop underwriters from pursuing Hollywood.