In a recent interview with Insurance Business, CFC’s Michael Brunero and Tyser Live’s Tim Thornhill (pictured right), MD at Tysers Live, shared what’s dominating conversations across the media and entertainment insurance landscape. Their insights paint a picture of a rapidly changing risk environment, marked by a variety of external and internal considerations.
The question for the market now is how well-equipped media and entertainment clients are to navigate its complexity – and how the insurance industry can support them. Offering his insights, Brunero (pictured left), head of tech, media & intellectual property at CFC, highlighted the rate at which content is created and consumed, as well as the constantly developing distribution models utilised to disseminate this material.
With that in mind, he said, exposures in the media and entertainment sector are constantly changing and it is incumbent on the insurance industry to be savvy to this fact, ensuring that its products keep pace with the rate of progress. “The industry itself is a complex eco-system with hundreds of professionals of varying shapes and sizes being utilised to create the content that eventually hits the many screens we have at our disposal.
“In the film and TV space, the major streaming service providers and studios are sophisticated buyers of insurance and typically have specialist arrangements in place. Where I see insurers being able to add much more value to the industry is in educating the less sophisticated buyers on their risk exposures and the insurance products available to protect them.”
Brunero noted that the industry at large often stipulates insurance purchase for smaller freelancers as a contractual requirement, but there is always more work to be done in educating the client base on the value the industry’s products provide, without the purchase needing to be compulsory. “We can play a really valuable role in assisting SMEs in navigating this incredibly complex space.”
Adding a broker’s perspective, Thornhill, managing director at Tysers Live, emphasised the significant importance of great communication within the sector through associations and networks. This has been instrumental in helping clients understand what is going on and how to navigate through these issues. He also highlighted that there has been a shift since COVID with a number of clients across the sector now placing greater focus on business resilience.
Identifying some of the main ways in which a broker can provide support and solutions to clients, and so help them navigate the present and emerging risks that they face, Thornhill underscored the importance of being active in the industry. That constant activity is key to developing a good understanding of the developments and demands of the sector, he said, and it’s what enables Tysers Live to provide innovative product offerings and insurance and risk management solutions.
“We have one of the largest teams in the UK with over 130 colleagues just focussing on media, entertainment and sports insurance which means that Tysers Live has specialists not just by class but by sector,” he said. “For example, cyber risk is on the increase, and our experts are on hand to provide creative solutions to protect our clients’ businesses.
“The expertise and scale of Tysers Live mean we have an exceptionally strong grounding and deep understanding of the industry and are able to deliver great and prompt service to our clients, and use these networks to grow in further areas.”
Adding CFC’s perspective on what support is available to brokers as well as clients, Brunero championed the importance of having a specialist team of claims personnel dealing with IP and defamation. It’s a true value-add, he said, as it means you can help companies with legal and reputational issues managing claims through engaging experienced counsel and any associated settlements and damages, but also by ensuring that this is affordable and in the client’s best interests.
“Cyber insurance has been on a meteoric rise in recent years due to society’s increasing reliance on technology to function and the media and entertainment sector is no exception,” he said. “[We] can use our cyber expertise to provide a combined solution to offer cyber with our media liability package.
“We provide proactive threat intelligence as part of our cyber offering, alerting our clients to vulnerabilities that present a real threat to prevent a cyber event and thus a claim before it can happen. This is a huge value add for brokers as a sales tool as a recent study that we conducted revealed that the average monthly cost to an SME to outsource all the cybersecurity services we provide as part of our cyber offering for free is $6,412 equating to an annual spend of $76,967.”
Brunero added that, “whether people like it or not”, AI is becoming a part of the entertainment and media sector. However, he noted that there are a range of technologies which are subject to patent, trade secrets and the other IP considerations that go into powering the sector. When IP is literally the cornerstone of the entire industry, he said, you have to have robust IP protection that brokers can offer to their clients.
Not only does that provide defence protection for infringement claims, he said, but it also provides strategic pursuit cover in the event someone has infringed on a client’s IP. “This is especially valuable to small businesses facing the prospect of a large organisation misappropriating their IP and feeling powerless,” he said. “Never underestimate the power of a strongly worded letter from a reputable IP lawyer backed by one of the most well-known insurance names in the market!”
