In big-budget film and television productions, the biggest threat to insurers is harm to an A-List actor. In fact, ensuring the safety of the major players is a top priority for entertainment insurers everywhere, from the big screen to the small screen to the stage.
Susan McGuirl, head of North American entertainment for
Allianz, which has – through its acquisition of Fireman’s Fund Insurance – been insuring film productions in Hollywood since the Silent Era, said productions continue to get bigger and more expensive.
And the claims the insurance giant sees in the industry usually come from actor illness and injury.
“There’s more content being made than ever before. The budgets are bigger – television budgets are as big as feature films these days. The costs of doing it are larger than we’ve seen in the past,” she said. “The creativity and use of technology – for making and for streaming the content – is sometimes risky and gives you pause to say, you want to do what? It requires that we really underwrite it and understand it.
“We have risk control people who go out and look at various stunts or locations to make certain that they are indeed safe for the crew and cast, and that they’re reasonable – that the objective can be safely achieved. There are some [occasions] where we may insure this stunt but we won’t insure that stunt. It could be a car chase or wire work or horseback riding, and you can create the deductibles or you can choose not to insure that.”
Unlike a music festival, film and television productions usually carry just one insurer, McGuirl said. And if there are risky scenes to shoot, an insurance risk control consultant will work with the production company to ensure the shot is viable and, most importantly, safe – especially for the big money actors.
“The biggest ticket item on a film loss is typically cast coverage - if a cast member goes down and can’t perform,” she explained. “Those are the largest claims. They have to pay the actor [still] … and if that actor is an essential element to the production it stops the whole thing. If that talent is unable to act, you still got to keep the lights on, you’ve got to keep the other salaries [paid] and keep the location.”
In those cases, the production would claim for lost time while the actor was out of commission, which would likely have them shooting over timeframe and over budget.
Related stories:
Insuring the global movie industry is a risky business
Foo Fighters sue insurer over concert cancellation
.jpg)
