Your entire inventory leaves the building every morning with strangers.

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 — Rental inventory is mobile by definition, and property cover stops at the door it left through.

Commercial property

Buildings and contents, valued at what it costs to rebuild today rather than what you paid.

Without it — The warehouse, the prep bays and everything not out on hire still burn.

General liability

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

Without it — Clients prep in your building, and equipment you supplied is used in places full of people.

Third party property damage

Damage to property in your care while you are shooting on it — the location itself, and the fixtures in it. General liability excludes property in your care, custody and control, which is precisely what a location is.

Without it — Damage caused by your gear on somebody else’s location is claimed against you as the supplier.

Business income

Replaces the profit and pays the ongoing bills while a covered loss keeps you closed — the part of a fire claim that is not the building.

Without it — A fire in the warehouse takes the inventory and every booking that inventory was carrying.

Commercial auto

Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.

Without it — Deliveries, collections and trucks moving high-value loads on a schedule.

Professional liability

Covers the advice, the drawing, the diagnosis — the work itself, rather than someone getting hurt on your premises.

Without it — Specifying or prepping the wrong package for a job is an error with a financial loss attached.

Crime & employee dishonesty

Theft by your own staff, funds transfer fraud, and the dishonesty bond a home care contract will ask you for by name.

Without it — The most common large loss in this class is gear that goes out on a hire and never comes back.

Do I insure gear that is out on hire, or does the renter?

Both, and the order matters. You should insure your own inventory wherever it is, because recovering from a renter is a debt collection exercise rather than an insurance claim. You should also require a certificate from every renter naming you as loss payee, with a limit that matches the value going out — which is the discipline that stops a small production walking away with a package worth more than their whole budget. The certificate is not a substitute for your own cover; it is what makes your own cover recoverable.

What about fraudulent hires?

It is the defining large loss in this business and it is frequently not a property claim at all. Gear obtained by deception — false identity, a production that does not exist, a forged certificate — is theft by fraud, and many equipment forms exclude voluntary parting with property. That gap is closed by crime cover, and the underwriting question is what your verification process looks like. Documented checks on new accounts are worth more here than anywhere else in the class.

Should I insure at replacement cost or actual value?

Replacement, and it is worth arguing for. Cameras, lenses and lighting depreciate on paper far faster than they depreciate in usefulness or in what it costs to put the same package back on the shelf. An actual-cash-value settlement on a five-year-old body funds a fraction of the replacement, and the difference is your operating capacity.