Do Your Science Filmmaking Small Business Need An Insurance? Find Out Here
A lot of people that get into the filmmaking profession actually started out as amateurs who just had a passion for filmmaking and weren’t necessarily interested in attaining any formal education behind it. Such people learn through trial and error that filmmaking is the result of balancing a lot of variables to get to the final product. Those who go to film school will learn early on that they need insurance but they don’t realize the importance or the significance of this resource till something goes wrong in the field.
If you are on the fence about getting filmmaking insurance for your production company or just for your next film project, this article will help you come to an informed decision.
Types Of Filmmaking Insurance
Just like insurance for your health, home, car, or any other asset, there are several types of filmmaking insurance policies that you can choose from. Bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to filmmaking insurance. You want an insurance policy that accurately meets your needs and addresses the specific production problems that you could face in the field. Rather than looking at it as either a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ kind of insurance, it makes more sense to evaluate an insurance product on the basis of how well it serves your purpose. For instance, if you have a long project that is easily going to take more than a year to complete then it won’t be the best choice to go for the three-month insurance. Yet, if something were to go wrong within three months, then the smaller insurance wouldn’t exactly have gone to waste either.
One of the most popular options is the DICE insurance policy since this covers a range of different creations. Usually, a filmmaker is working on more than one project at a time so this gives them comprehensive coverage for all those projects, and it can also be bought in different sizes to account for the scale of each operation.
How To Get Filmmaking Insurance
Unlike traditional insurance, with filmmaking insurance, the best solution is not just to find your local insurance company and sign up for a basic plan. In filmmaking, there are a lot of variables that you have to account for. From within this group of variables you need to narrow down those that are the riskiest options and the ones that you need the most coverage for. You also need to ask yourself do I need business insurance or just insurance for my equipment? When you are running a full-sized production company you have problems just like all other businesses do and on top of that, you have your filming challenges. For smaller companies or individual filmmakers, it might be better to just have filmmaking insurance but for larger teams, it will be well worth it to have business insurance as well.
Making The Right Choice
In filmmaking, there are a lot of caveats that you need to protect yourself against. For instance, just within the copyright domain, there are dozens of problems that you could face. Having the right insurance can protect you should these issues develop into a financial liability. To make the best choice, you should have an entertainment lawyer on board to handle all these issues. Having an attorney who specializes in the field is beneficial since they can also review your project and suggest the best insurance options for that particular job. To get the best coverage, many production houses have a panel of entertainment lawyers and also have a range of insurance policies to protect every aspect of their production.
When you are working on such large projects the last thing you want is for things to come to a standstill on account of one legal issue or another. With the assistance of the lawyers, the production houses can move in the right direction right from the start.
Operating Without Insurance
Small filmmakers do sometimes take the risk of operating without an insurance policy but as the operations grow this becomes a hindrance. For instance, many filming locations won’t allow you to work there without insurance. Similarly, there are many operations that are now allowed to be carried out without a comprehensive media insurance policy.
If you need to work with a major broadcaster, if you need a distributor, if you need a financer, if you need to hire props, sets, wardrobe, and many other things, you will need insurance. If you want to work without insurance you will have to keep your operations small and this may in turn force you to create material that is of limited quality.
When you are creating something like a film, even a very basic film, there is the potential to earn millions of dollars simply because it is a product that can be sold to the masses. It is also a highly competitive industry, so if you want to make something that will really stand out the quality needs to be there. In order to achieve that quality, you need to have the right groundwork done. Filming insurance can seem like a hassle when your operations are small, but if you desire to operate at a higher level, when a single camera can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, there is no room for risk.
