The console is insured. The master nobody backed up is not.

Commercial property

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

Without it — Consoles, monitors, outboard and acoustic treatment are the business, and a sprinkler head does not distinguish between them.

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 — Microphones, instruments and mobile rigs travel to sessions and leave the building the property policy stops at.

General liability

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

Without it — Clients, guests and delivery crews move through a room full of cable, stands and stairs.

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 studio out of action loses booked sessions that cannot be moved, and the artists rebook elsewhere permanently.

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 — A vintage guitar or a hired synth left in your live room is property in your care, and general liability excludes it outright.

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 — Sessions, stems and unreleased masters sit on servers, and a leak before release is a commercial catastrophe rather than an IT problem.

Equipment breakdown & spoilage

Covers the walk-in, the compressor and the line when they fail from the inside — a mechanical or electrical breakdown is excluded by property policies, and the stock that thawed goes with it.

Without it — Power events take out consoles and converters, and the repair queue for older gear is long.

Business owners policy

General liability and property packaged together. Cheaper than buying them separately when you qualify, and most small businesses do.

Without it — For most independent studios the property and liability belong in one package rather than three policies.

Is a client’s instrument covered while it is in my studio?

Not by your general liability, which excludes damage to property in your care, custody and control — and a guitar left in the live room is exactly that. It needs to be insured deliberately, either on your own policy by endorsement or by the owner. This is the most common uninsured loss in the class, and it usually surfaces the first time something expensive and irreplaceable is knocked over.

What happens if a recording is lost?

It depends entirely on how the policy treats media. The physical drive is property and cheap; the session on it is neither, and many property forms limit recovery to the cost of blank media. Cover for the value of the recording, and for the cost of re-recording it, has to be arranged specifically. Given what a re-shoot of a session with booked musicians costs, it is worth the conversation before it is needed.

Do I need anything different for a podcast or streaming studio?

The property and liability are the same; what changes is the media exposure. Publishing what is recorded introduces defamation, privacy and rights-clearance risk that a music studio hiring out a room does not have. That is media liability, and it is a separate form rather than a feature of the studio policy.

What media liability covers

We rent the room out unsupervised. Does that matter?

Yes, and it should be declared. Unsupervised hire changes both the liability profile — nobody of yours is present when something goes wrong — and the property one, because your gear is in the hands of people you have not trained. It is entirely writable and it is a different rate, and an undeclared lock-out arrangement is the kind of fact that gets examined after a fire.