Equipment & Production Insurance
A service of United Agencies, Inc
Please note our offices will be closed on Monday, January 20th, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 21st. If you have any questions or issues please contact your UA agent or feel free to reach out to us online for assistance.
Your Friends at Insured Production and United Agencies
We get a lot of calls these days about Producer Errors and Omissions Insurance, so I decided it was a good idea to revisit the topic in greater detail.
What is Producer Errors and Omissions Insurance?I wrote a blog a while back explaining what Errors and Omissions Insurance covers and why it’s needed.
Errors and omissions insurance covers losses other than property damage caused by your production company or its employees.
Your General liability insurance covers damages to a third-party or their property.
If you are a filmmaker, you need E&O before establishing your production’s distribution network. Errors & Omissions insurance is not limited to movie producers. In fact, radio and television producers are also eligible for liability coverage.
Errors and Omissions Insurance protects film producers from lawsuits that can and do arise over the content of their production. Take, for example, a couple of the many legal cases surrounding the Harry Potter series.
In 1999, Nancy Kathleen Stouffer alleged copyright infringement by J.K. Rowling, based on Rowling’s use of the word “Muggles.”Another case involved a scene where Rowling named a band called the Weird Sisters. Apparently, there was a group that owned the rights to the name in Canada. Both cases resulted in a drawn-out legal battle and high legal fees.
Copyright infringement can occur without you even realizing it. In the case of the band name, how could you possibly research every group in every country? Most writers don’t think that far ahead. They just hope to produce a script that people like.
That is why you need Producer Errors and Omissions Insurance.
Movie producers are not the only ones who should consider Errors and Omissions Insurance. Any type of production that involves a written script should definitely consider E & O as a supplement to their general liability policy.
However, you must get Producer Errors and Omissions Insurance BEFORE distribution. Productions facing litigation due to content errors are not eligible for coverage.
For more information on production insurance in California, contact Equipment & Production Insurance. The team at Equipment and Production Insurance are film, photographic & entertainment industry insurance specialists. Whether you need short-term, annual, post, documentary, commercial, equipment, rental house, E&O, or rent your own insurance, you can rely on their quick and knowledgeable assistance to meet all of your production insurance needs.
To Our Clients and Friends,
Thank you and Happy Holidays from all of us at Equipment & Production Insurance.
As 2024 comes to a close, we want to take this opportunity to thank you for entrusting us with the service of your insurance policies and financial protection. Our relationships with you took on even greater meaning this year as we navigated this strange and difficult year together.
While 2020 has been very challenging, we believe 2021 will be much better. Although the holidays may look a little different this year, all of us here at United Agencies wish you the very best of health, happiness, success, and peace during this holiday season and into the year ahead.
As always, you should feel free to contact me with any questions you might. I am always happy to help you with any of your insurance needs. Be well and please stay safe.
Sincerely,
The product we tend to sell more of than any other is the short-term production policy. This type of policy is fast, inexpensive, and offers great coverage for short-term shoots where a client needs insurance. However, I answer many concerns held by rental houses who fear deficiencies in the short-term policies they are given. More often than not, they have problems with the limits of coverage provided, or they are concerned that the policy itself is cut-rate and illegitimate.
These are two valid concerns because there are many cheap and cut-rate short-term policies out there. However, if you are a rental house, you can protect yourself. Just make sure you double check these three things anytime you are handed a short-term insurance certificate.
The biggest and most obvious difference between an annual policy and a short-term policy is the coverage period. Short-Term policies can run for as little as one day, so you need to make sure your renter is adequately covered during the entire rental period.
Not only do you need to check the dates, you also should consider the timing. If they hand you a certificate that says they are covered from 2/5/2020 until 2/15/2020, that means they are covered from 12:01 AM on February 5th until 12:01 AM on February 15th. In other words, they are NOT covered on the 15th. Just because that date is shown on the certificate, it does NOT mean that you have coverage on that date.
You need to make sure that every rental is picked up and returned within the dates shown on the certificate. Even if they tell you that they don’t plan to film with your equipment until the policy starts, you need to insist that they add the proper dates of coverage.
There is no reason that a short-term policy cannot cover everything you require. You can demand the same coverages for General Liability, Rented Equipment, Auto, etc. that you do from any client with an annual policy. If you tell your renter they need to add a missing coverage, and they try to tell you that they can’t – they are either lying or they have a bad policy.
Every legitimate short-term insurance policy can include all the required coverages without any issues. It may cost the client extra money, but that’s the price they have to pay for making high-end rentals.
There are some short-term policies out there that do not come from an agent. That is a problem. If you have questions about the coverage, or if you wish to file a claim, you won’t be able to call anyone. Make sure that the certs you receive have a phone number for the issuing agent. That way you can contact them to verify coverage limits or deductible amounts.
The last thing you want to find out when you have a claim is that your renter bought a two-bit policy from an online-only insurance provider. What will you do when you need answers to your claim questions or inquiries?
There are, of course, many other things you should be doing to clear your renters before you give your equipment to them. However, these three steps are a great start to making sure that your equipment and your business are properly covered.
Feel free to call us with any questions about purchasing a short-term policy, or renting to people who carry them.
It’s that time of year again…. a time of sharing what we are all thankful for, and on this Thanksgiving, we want to share our genuine appreciation for YOU – we wouldn’t be where we are today without you.
To our valued clients, friends and affiliates, thank you for being a part of our journey this year. On behalf of all of us here at United Agencies, we wish you and your family a very happy and safe Thanksgiving.
Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or just want to chat. Call or e-mail me today.
Warmest wishes,
