Issue your own certificates, and schedule the stunts everyone else excludes.Founded by an Emmy-nominated television editor.

Production package

A single renewable policy covering every production a company shoots in the year, rather than one policy per project. Productions carrying stunts, cast coverage or animals are scheduled onto it individually.

Without it — One renewable policy across every production in the year, instead of starting from nothing on each project.

General liability

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

Without it — No location permit, no studio access, no rental house will release gear without it.

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 — Rented camera, lighting and grip packages are your responsibility from the moment you sign for them.

Third party property damage

Damage to property in your care while you are shooting on it, meaning 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 — General liability excludes property in your care, which is exactly what a location is once you are shooting in it.

Props, sets & wardrobe

Physical loss of the things built or bought for the shoot: sets, props, costumes, and rented furs, jewelry, art and antiques, which sit on their own sub-limit because their values are nothing like the rest.

Without it — Sets, costumes and rented jewelry are built or hired at real cost and are not equipment.

Negative film & faulty stock

Covers reshoot costs when the footage itself is lost or unusable: damaged media, a camera fault, or a processing error. The loss is not the equipment, it is the day of shooting that has to happen again.

Without it — A card fault or a processing error does not cost you a drive, it costs you the shoot day again.

Cast insurance

Pays the cost of shutting down, recasting or reshooting when a scheduled principal cannot perform through injury, illness or death. It is rated per person and requires the cast member to be named and usually examined before coverage attaches.

Without it — A principal who cannot perform stops the production, and the schedule keeps costing money.

Stunts & pyrotechnics

Coverage for productions running stunt work, vehicle action or pyrotechnics. The standard production policy carries a printed stunt and pyrotechnic exclusion, so this is not a limit that quietly sits there. The production has to be scheduled and underwritten before the exclusion comes off.

Without it — The standard production form excludes stunts and pyrotechnics by name. It has to be underwritten rather than assumed.

Animal mortality & injury

Death, illness or injury to animals working on a production, and the extra expense of shooting around one that cannot perform. Excluded by name on a standard production form alongside stunts and pyrotechnics, and scheduled the same way.

Without it — Animals are excluded on the same endorsement as stunts, and a horse that cannot work costs you the day as well as the animal.

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 — Crew injuries on set are frequent enough that no legitimate production runs without it.

Commercial auto

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

Without it — Production vehicles, cube trucks and picture cars are all business use.

Media errors & omissions

Covers claims arising from the content itself: copyright, trademark, defamation and rights clearance. No distributor or streamer accepts delivery of a finished film without it.

Without it — No distributor or streamer takes delivery of a finished film without it.

Umbrella & excess liability

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

Without it — Studios and networks routinely require limits well above a primary policy before they will contract.

What is actually in a production package?

General liability, which is what a location or a municipality is asking for on the certificate; hired and non-owned auto, because production vehicles are almost never owned; miscellaneous equipment, which covers the gear you rented and the rental house will hold you to; props, sets and wardrobe; third party property damage, which is the one general liability specifically excludes and is the commonest production claim there is; and faulty stock, camera and processing. Cast, stunts, animals, aircraft, drones, watercraft and errors and omissions sit alongside it and are added when the show needs them rather than by default. A package written without reading the schedule is a package that excludes whatever makes your show, and it is the stunts, the picture cars and the animals that get excluded first.

Should I buy per-project or an annual policy?

It turns on how many shoots you have in a year rather than on how big they are. A single feature or a one-off commercial is a short-term package written for the run of the production. A company shooting several times a year — a production company, a content studio, a commercial house — is usually better on an annual policy, because every short-term package carries its own minimum premium and three of those cost more than one annual. The other advantage is speed: an annual policy issues certificates the same day, and a short-term package has to be bound first, which is the difference between a location confirming and a location moving on.

What does production insurance cost?

The production package is rated on gross production cost, not off a table, and anyone quoting you a figure before seeing the budget is guessing. Workers compensation varies enormously from state to state, so a crew price from one state tells you little about another. What moves it: the budget, the shoot days, the number of locations and whether any are practical or public, the value of rented equipment on the worst day rather than the average, cast and crew size, and every item the standard form excludes: stunts, pyrotechnics, animals, picture cars, aerial and drone work, watercraft, minors. Short-term packages carry minimum premiums, which is why a very small shoot often prices closer to a medium one than the budgets suggest. Send the schedule and a budget top sheet and you get a real number rather than a range.

What makes you a film and entertainment specialist rather than a general agency?

Yes, and it is the founder rather than a specialist hired in. Kevin Kelsey spent fifteen years editing television before moving into insurance, and is a member of IATSE Local 700. The credits are Wheel of Fortune, Shark Tank, Big Brother, Dancing with the Stars and The Muppets Mayhem, which was Emmy-nominated. They are on IMDb under his name if you want to check rather than take our word for it, which we would rather you did. Before that he did compliance and risk management work for some of the largest production companies in Hollywood. So when you describe a shoot day, a rental house holdback, a location that will not release without a certificate, or a schedule that has moved, it is being read by somebody who has been on the crew list.

Where do you write productions?

Los Angeles to Atlanta, New York and Toronto, and we write worldwide and foreign production coverage for shoots that travel. The practical point is that the certificate and permit requirements are not the same in each of them, and neither are the incentives that decide where a production ends up. A show that moves from Los Angeles to Georgia mid-prep does not just change address; it changes which filings, which workers compensation position and which local requirements apply, and that is a conversation worth having before the move rather than after.

Can I issue my own certificates?

Yes, and this is the part that changes how a production runs. You get a login and issue your own certificates — for the rental house, the location, the municipality, FilmLA, the City of Los Angeles — at the moment you need them, including the city and special-form certificates that have their own required wording and that a generic certificate will not satisfy. No email to the broker, no waiting for a callback at six on a Friday when the truck is loading Saturday morning.

Can you cover stunts, pyrotechnics and animals?

Yes, and it is worth asking every broker you speak to, because the standard production policy excludes all three by name. The exclusion is a printed endorsement on the form. Those exposures are covered by scheduling the production that carries them, with the stunt, the cast and the animals declared in advance. So the answer is not that our policy quietly includes them; it is that we underwrite them deliberately. Tell us before the shoot rather than after.

Can I get a certificate for a single shoot?

Yes. Short-term production policies are standard and can be written for a single day, a single project or a season. What we need is the shoot dates, the locations, the crew size and the value of the rented equipment. If you shoot regularly, an annual production package is usually cheaper than the third short-term policy and lets you schedule new productions as they come up.

Do you only insure productions?

No. The same market writes the businesses around production: rental houses, rigging and grip installation, and live music and festivals. They are related risks with genuinely different shapes — a rental house is insuring equipment out on hire rather than equipment on set, and a festival is a crowd and a build rather than a crew — but they are placed in the same corner of the market and by the same people.

What is E&O and when do I need it?

Errors and omissions covers claims arising from the content itself: copyright, trademark, defamation, rights clearance. Every distributor and every streamer requires it before they will accept delivery, and it is normally the last thing a producer discovers they need. It is worth pricing while you are still in post rather than after a deal is signed.

Does my policy cover rented equipment?

Only if it is scheduled properly. Rental houses require a certificate showing the equipment value with them named as loss payee, and the limit has to actually cover the package. A policy written for a $50,000 kit will not release a $250,000 one. Tell us the rental order and we will match the limit to it.

What does a film and entertainment insurance application ask for?

The applications for film and entertainment businesses ask about 4 things above all: what does your company do; what's the largest production budget you handle for any single project; what steps do you take to prevent problems or claims; has your company changed its name, acquired another business, or merged with another company in the past five years. Have your last three years of claims history from your current or past insurance company, called loss runs and a copy of your title and trademark report reviewed by a qualified attorney ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.