Whether your crew goes with the gear decides the whole policy.Founded by an Emmy-nominated television editor.
We insure companies that rent out AV, lighting, staging, LED walls, backline, generators, tents and camera gear, and the first thing an underwriter asks is whether your people install and operate it or the gear leaves on the renter’s truck.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
We were editing television long before we were insuring it.
Kevin Kelsey
Founder | Principal Agent
IATSE Local 700 member
Boring’s founder, Kevin Kelsey, edited television for fifteen years before he sold a policy. He was Emmy-nominated for The Muppets Mayhem, cut Shark Tank, Big Brother, Dancing with the Stars and Wheel of Fortune, and handled compliance and risk for some of Hollywood’s largest production companies. So the person building your coverage has been on a crew list, dealt with the permit offices, and met network and streamer requirements from the production side, rather than working from a rate manual. He also builds post-production software. Manifest Post is the board episodic post teams use to track every episode, and B/side is a video editor for people who cut together. He holds a number of patents on that software. So he knows the post side of a production as a vendor to it. We insure productions from Los Angeles to Atlanta, New York and Toronto, with worldwide and foreign production coverage.
The work is placed with the markets that actually write film, television and live entertainment — Zurich through ISC Entertainment (formerly Abacus), Philadelphia Insurance Companies, Take1 and Alive Risk — rather than with a general small-business carrier asked to try.
Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.
Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.
What equipment rental businesses actually need.
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, so the floater has to follow it out on rent, in transit, at the venue and back in storage.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — A speaker stack that tips or a cable run that trips somebody is claimed against you as the supplier, long after the renter signed for it.
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 moment your techs deliver, install or run the show, you have a crew working at height and lifting road cases in somebody else’s building.
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.
Business income
Replaces the profit and pays the ongoing bills while a covered loss keeps you closed. It is 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.
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 — A rented box truck for a busy weekend is still your vehicle exposure, and most venues ask for auto liability on the certificate.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — Hotels, arenas and producers write limits above primary into the vendor agreement before you load in.
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.
What the regulators actually wrote down.
An entertainment program’s rental house application asks whether you require evidence of liability and property insurance from each renter before the rental and ask to be added as additional insured and loss payee on it. It also asks whether you verify that the evidence is valid and sufficient before the gear goes out.
Alive Risk, Rental House Supplemental Application (rev. 11/22) · checked 2026-10-03
The same application asks what percentage of your equipment is employee operated and what share of operations are temporary or permanent installations. It also asks about staging and rigging services, hot processes, flammables, compressed gas and pyrotechnics.
Alive Risk, Rental House Supplemental Application (rev. 11/22) · checked 2026-10-03
It also asks for rental receipts and sales receipts separately for the current term and the past three years, and requires a copy of your rental agreement, your safety and maintenance programs and five years of loss history.
Alive Risk, Rental House Supplemental Application (rev. 11/22) · checked 2026-10-03
An inland marine supplemental for the same program asks whether equipment is rented to others with operators or without operators, whether certificates of insurance are required from the lessee, whether property is ever left in an unattended vehicle or overnight, what alarms protect the storage facility, and for an equipment schedule by year, manufacturer, model and serial number.
Alive Risk, Inland Marine Supplemental Application (rev. 11/22) · checked 2026-10-03
The program’s music, touring and live events summary lists production vendors among its classes and inland marine for all owned and rented equipment among its coverages, with excess liability towers available up to $25 million.
Alive Risk, Music, Touring & Live Events program flyer · checked 2026-10-03
ESTA’s Entertainment Technician Certification Program includes a Portable Power Distribution Technician certification alongside its two rigger certifications and Entertainment Electrician.
ETCP, Entertainment Services and Technology Association · checked 2026-10-03
The claims we actually see.
Ordered by how often we see them, not by how dramatic they are. Each one names the coverage that answers it — and the policy people wrongly assume already does.
Most common
Gear comes back damaged, or does not come back
Covered by Inland marine (rental equipment floater)
The renter’s certificate is not your coverage. Recovering from a renter is a debt collection exercise, and your own floater is what pays while you chase it.
Most common
A truck or storage unit broken into overnight
Covered by Inland marine
Many floaters restrict theft from an unattended vehicle, which is why the application asks whether gear is ever left in one overnight.
Common
Somebody hurt by equipment you supplied
Covered by General liability, products and completed operations
Being named additional insured on the renter’s policy covers you for injury their use caused. A defect in your own gear stays on your own policy.
Less common, severe
Gear rented out on a fake identity or a forged certificate
Covered by Crime
Equipment forms commonly exclude property you handed over voluntarily, even when you were deceived into it.
Rare, catastrophic
Something your crew installed fails during the event
Covered by General liability and umbrella
A policy rated as dry hire rental may not contemplate installation, so wet hire work has to be declared at the share you actually do.
Rental and production businesses with their own page.
Every one of these is written for that specific operation — the coverages it needs, the questions underwriters ask it, and what it usually gets wrong.
- Staging & Rigging Companies
Underwriters price a staging or rigging company on climbing height, flown versus ground-supported loads, engineering sign-off and ETCP supervision, and we build the submission around those facts for stage, truss, roof and grip companies.
- Party, Event & Bounce House Rentals
We cover party and event rental operators, from inflatables and tents to staging, tables and chairs. The equipment travels, the public uses it unsupervised, and the venue wants naming before you may set up.
- Camera Equipment
We insure camera equipment wherever it actually is, in the car, on location, on a plane, in a rental house’s hands or under a drone, written as inland marine rather than the property policy that stops at your front door.
- Production Vendors
We insure the companies a production hires: transport, catering, security, set construction, studio teachers, medics and everyone else on the call sheet who is not the production.
- Event Vendors & Concessionaires
No market, festival or convention will assign you a space without a certificate. We issue them for traders, concessionaires and exhibitors.
A full-service AV company with about $250,000 in revenue brings its own speakers, microphones and screens to hotel ballrooms and runs them through the event. Its previous carrier had it filed as an equipment rental operation, and every venue certificate turned into an argument about what the business actually did.
We presented it as AV production with its own operators, on a general liability form at $1M per occurrence and $2M aggregate with a $2M umbrella, blanket additional insured and blanket waiver of subrogation, so each hotel’s wording could be issued without a new endorsement. We raised employers liability to $1M because the venues’ written requirements asked for it. When a hotel asked for a $50M umbrella, the certificate it sent turned out to be the hotel’s own, and the standard program satisfied it.
What the insurance company will ask about your equipment rental business
We read 4 applications the markets use for this kind of business and pulled out what they actually ask. Have these answers ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week, because nobody has to come back to you for the missing piece.
About the business
- What's your annual gross revenue?
- How long have you been in business under current management?
- Are you a member of any event safety organizations like ESTA or PLASA?
How you operate
- What equipment do you rent out - describe the types and models
- Do you require insurance from renters for every rental?
- How do you qualify renters before approving them - what checks or criteria do you use?
- Do you photograph equipment before each rental?
- How does the equipment exchange happen - pickup, delivery, or another way?
Safety and controls
- Do you have a written maintenance program for all equipment?
- Do you have a written safety program and emergency procedures for weather or equipment problems?
- For staging services, does a professional engineer sign off on installations?
- Do you hire independent contractors for rigging, staging, or other work - if so, do they have their own liability insurance and hold you harmless?
Your history
- What insurance claims have you had in the last five years?
Money and people
- Do you conduct background checks on renters?
- Do you conduct credit checks on renters?
Have these ready
- Your rental agreement or contract
- Your equipment maintenance program and safety procedures
- Your loss history for the last five years
- Photos or schedule of equipment units with year, make, model, and value
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our equipment rental clients ask us.
Does my general liability cover equipment I rent out?
No. General liability pays when your gear injures somebody or damages their property. It never pays for the gear itself. Loss or damage to your own inventory, wherever it is, is inland marine, usually an equipment floater written for rental inventory. The renter’s insurance is a second layer you require in the rental agreement, not a replacement for your own.
What is the difference between dry hire and wet hire for insurance?
Dry hire means the gear leaves without your people, so the exposure is your equipment plus liability for what you supplied. Wet hire means your techs deliver, install or operate it, which makes you a contractor on site with workers comp, height and completed operations exposure. Underwriters price the two differently and the application asks for the share of each. Mislabeling either way causes trouble at claim time.
What should my rental agreement say about insurance?
That the renter carries general liability naming you as additional insured as lessor of the equipment, carries property coverage on your gear at replacement value with you as loss payee, holds you harmless for its use, and waives subrogation. Then verify the certificate before release. The application asks whether you do exactly that, and a clause nobody checked is worth very little.
Does the renter naming me as additional insured protect me if my gear fails?
Only partly. The standard lessor of leased equipment endorsement covers you for injury caused in whole or in part by the renter’s use of the gear, and it stops when the rental ends. A failure that is yours alone, a defective motor or a speaker rigged with a worn clamp, belongs on your own products and completed operations coverage. Keep that coverage whatever the renters carry.
Do I need insurance to rent out my lighting or camera gear on ShareGrid or Peerspace?
The platform covers its own transaction, through damage waivers or by checking the renter’s insurance, and its rules change, so read the owner guidelines on yours. It does not insure your business. Liability if somebody is hurt, theft from your storage and anything rented off the platform need your own policy, and a homeowners policy usually excludes gear rented out for money. Regular renters are better off with an annual floater and general liability.
What do venues and producers require from an AV or production rental company?
Typically $1M per occurrence and $2M aggregate general liability, additional insured status with primary and non-contributory wording, a waiver of subrogation, workers comp with $1M employers liability where your crew is on site, auto liability, and often a $5M umbrella for hotels and arenas. Send the venue’s written requirements rather than paraphrasing them. A huge number on a certificate may be the venue’s own policy.
We rent backline. Is anything different?
Theft and travel. Instruments and amps are portable, resellable and often on tour, so the floater needs a territory that matches where the gear goes, including any international dates declared in advance. Artists also bring their own gear into your rooms, which is property in your care rather than yours, and needs its own limit if you hold it overnight.
What changes for LED walls and video gear?
Value per case and fragility. A wall of panels is expensive, slow to replace and damaged more often in transit than at the show, so insure at replacement cost and consider business income for the bookings you lose while panels are on order. LED walls are usually installed by your own techs, and a flown wall is a rigging exposure that has to be declared as one.
We rent generators and power distribution. What do underwriters look at?
Fire, fuel and electrical injury. The application asks about flammables and compressed gas, and a fuel spill is a pollution claim that a standard liability form excludes, so ask about pollution coverage if you refuel on site. Who connects the distribution matters too. A certified Portable Power Distribution Technician running the tie-in reads very differently from a renter plugging in on their own.
We rent tents, staging decks and dance floors. Is that the same risk?
Close, with wind added. Tents and outdoor structures bring anchoring, weather calls and the question of whether your crew sets them up or the customer does. Party rental also brings the public using your equipment unsupervised, and some liability forms for rental businesses exclude injury to the people using it, so read for that exclusion before you buy.
Do I need workers comp for freelance techs and loaders?
Usually. A tech you schedule, direct and pay by the day is your employee in most states whatever the tax form says, and California presumes it. Freelancers who run their own companies should hand you a certificate every time. If they cannot, expect the workers comp audit to add what you paid them to your payroll.
Can I insure only the equipment I rent in for jobs?
Sometimes, but markets dislike it small. We have had an underwriter decline a rented-equipment-only floater as too small to issue and ask for the owned gear by make, model and serial number first. A floater that schedules what you own and adds a blanket limit for gear you rent in is the shape most markets want.
We run a rental side alongside another business. One policy or two?
Often two. Markets tend to price a mixed account at its riskiest class, and a carrier that likes one half may decline the other. A pressure washing company with a party rental side is a real example from our desk, where a separate entity for the rentals was the cheaper route. Ask before you combine them.
What drives the price?
The split between rental and sales receipts, how much of the work is wet hire, any installation, staging or height work, the replacement value of the inventory and where it sleeps, how you vet renters and verify their certificates, theft history, the limits your venues demand, and five years of losses. A dry hire camera house and a staging company with the same revenue are priced as different businesses.
What will the application ask before quoting?
Three years of rental and sales receipts, an equipment schedule with serial numbers and values, your rental agreement, how renters are checked and whether you require and verify their certificates, the share of equipment your staff operate or install, any staging or rigging detail, subcontractor certificates and hold harmless terms, storage security, your maintenance program, and five years of loss runs.
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, through a false identity, a production that does not exist or a forged certificate, is theft by fraud, and many equipment forms exclude voluntary parting with property. Crime coverage closes that gap, and the underwriting question is what your verification of new accounts looks like.
Should I insure at replacement cost or actual value?
Replacement, and it is worth arguing for. Cameras, lenses, consoles 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 item funds a fraction of the replacement, and the difference is your operating capacity.
Guides on equipment rental.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.
Handed a lease, a vendor packet or a client contract with insurance requirements? Paste it into the COI Requirements Decoder to see what each one means for your business, or read what the requirements mean.