The gear is never at your address, the shoot is never in one state, and the platform is not your insurer.Founded by an Emmy-nominated television editor.

Inland marine & equipment

Tools, equipment and property in transit. It picks up exactly where commercial property stops, which is the moment the item leaves the building.

Without it — Cameras, lenses, lighting, audio, gimbals and laptops travel to every shoot and are not covered by a property policy once they leave your address.

General liability

Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.

Without it — A brand deal, a venue, a location owner or a film office will ask for a certificate before you work, and there is no certificate without a policy.

Media liability

Covers claims arising from what you publish — defamation, copyright and trademark infringement, invasion of privacy and misuse of a person’s likeness — on an annual policy for creators, podcasters, publishers and authors.

Without it — Copyright, defamation and right-of-publicity claims come from the content itself, and a licensing deal with a streamer specifies the limit before anyone signs.

Cyber & tech E&O

Breach response, ransomware and the notification costs that follow. Technology errors and omissions sits on the same policy and covers the software or service itself failing a client, which is the half most tech companies find out about too late.

Without it — The channel is the business, and an account takeover is the one income loss a policy will actually pay for.

Drone liability and hullUnmanned aircraft

Liability for injury or damage caused by the aircraft, and the aircraft itself, written on rather than assumed.

Without it — General liability excludes aircraft by name, so an unendorsed drone flight is uninsured from the moment it leaves the ground.

Hired & non-owned auto

Covers vehicles the business does not own but its people drive on the job — rentals, and employees running errands in their own cars. Their personal auto policy will not cover a business trip, and the claim lands on the business. Pricing depends entirely on HOW it is bought: as an endorsement on a general liability policy we write, HNOA often costs a few hundred dollars; as a stand-alone (monoline) policy it runs $2,500 to $5,000 — and association practitioner programs (CPH, CM&F and similar) generally cannot take the endorsement, so "add HNOA to my existing policy for $300-$800" is usually not a real option. A package carrying GL, professional liability and HNOA together is typically cheaper than the monoline.

Without it — An editor or assistant driving to a shoot in their own car is a claim against the business, not against their personal policy alone.

Workers compensation

Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.

Without it — The first editor or assistant makes you an employer, and a one-person company in California that a brand or production wants a certificate from is written as a ghost policy.

Product liability for merch

Bodily injury or property damage from a product carrying your name — a candle, a supplement, a print-on-demand hoodie.

Without it — The print-on-demand vendor’s policy protects the vendor. It is rarely required, and it is sometimes bundled with general liability when it is.

Umbrella & excess liability

Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.

Without it — A network, a streamer or a national brand will specify limits above primary in the agreement, and the umbrella is how those are met.

What is the difference between a content creator and an influencer, and does it change the insurance?

A creator is paid for the content — ad revenue, licensing, subscriptions, a production fee. An influencer is paid for the audience — a brand pays to be in front of it. Most channels are both. The label changes nothing about the gear or the general liability, but it changes the media liability side: an influencer is making advertising claims about someone else’s product under endorsement rules, and a creator licensing a series to a streamer is delivering content to a contract with an insurance clause in it. Tell us which deals you actually have, because the policy is built around the contracts rather than the job title.

Does my homeowners or renters policy cover my camera gear and my channel?

Not usefully. Homeowners and renters policies cap business property at a small amount, often a few thousand dollars, and most exclude business property away from the home entirely — which is where the gear is on every shoot. They also exclude business liability, so a guest who trips over your light stand at a location is not covered either. Gear is written on an equipment policy that follows it anywhere, and the liability goes on a general liability policy in the business’s name.

How camera and video gear is actually insured

A brand deal or a venue is asking for a certificate of insurance. What do they mean, and how fast can I get one?

They want proof that a general liability policy exists, usually a million per occurrence, with themselves named as an additional insured. A certificate is issued from an existing policy in minutes; the policy itself takes a day or two to bind for a straightforward channel. Read the exact wording they sent rather than a summary, because additional insured status is an endorsement on the policy and certificates get rejected over precisely that. If a film office or a city permit is involved, the requirements are more specific and we have written them up.

Certificate holder versus additional insured

Is my income insured if the channel is demonetised, banned or buried by an algorithm change?

No, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something that will not pay. There is no market for lost income from a platform decision — demonetisation, a policy strike, a ban, a change in what gets recommended. We checked before writing this. The one income loss that is insurable is a hack: if the account is taken over, the videos deleted and a ransom demanded, cyber cover pays the response, the rebuild and the income lost while the channel is dark. A creator we have seen quoted elsewhere with a small per-day hack benefit is being sold a sublimited version of that same cover. The protection against a platform decision is not a policy; it is not having one platform.

What cyber cover pays after an account takeover

I am a one-person S-corp or loan-out in California. Do I need workers compensation?

If a brand, a production or a platform deal wants a certificate from your entity, yes, and it is written as a ghost policy — a workers compensation policy with no payroll on it, priced at the minimum, that exists so the certificate can. It satisfies the requirement without you paying to insure yourself as your own employee. The moment you hire a first editor or assistant, even part-time, the policy becomes a real one rated on their payroll, and the difference between a contractor and an employee is decided by the state, not by what the invoice says.

How entertainment loan-outs are insured

Does general liability cover something I said in a video?

Almost never for a media business. General liability includes a small amount of personal and advertising injury cover, and the carriers that write channels exclude it for anyone whose business is publishing — because otherwise every defamation and copyright claim in the country would be a general liability claim. What you said, what you showed, whose song or face was in it: that is media liability, a separate policy with its own limit and a retroactive date.

Media liability, and when a channel needs it

How do influencers and creators get health insurance?

The same three ways everyone self-employed does: the state or federal marketplace as an individual, a spouse’s plan, or — once the business has at least one employee besides the owner — a small group plan, which is usually the best coverage per dollar and is deductible to the company. A creator with an editor on payroll can often set up group health for two people. We write it, and it is a separate conversation from the business policies on this page.

Group health for a small company

I am on TikTok or Instagram, or I stream on Twitch. Is any of this different?

The platform changes almost nothing; the deals do. A short-form creator with brand deals has the same gear, the same liability at a shoot and the same advertising exposure as a YouTuber. A streamer has less gear on the move and more time live, so the media side is about what gets said unscripted and the cyber side is about the account. What decides the policy is where the money comes from and what the contracts require, so bring the deal terms rather than the follower count.

What does content creator insurance cost?

A range, and the honest answer is that four things drive it. Revenue and payroll set the general liability price — carriers rate it on payroll, or on your annual production costs, never on views. The value of the gear sets the equipment price. A drone, worldwide travel and merch each add a piece. And media liability is priced on what the contracts demand: a channel with no licensing deal buys a modest limit, and a channel a streamer wants to license buys a large one. A small channel with a modest kit can be insured for less than a month of a decent brand deal; a company doing real money with drones and foreign shoots is a proper commercial account. Send the revenue, the gear list and the contracts and you get a number rather than a bracket.