Hey guys,

I need public liability insurance for a wedding fair. Can anyone recommend somewhere quick and cheap to use? My business is picking up this year and i have weddings booked later this year but no need for full insurance yet.

Talk to Towergate Camerasure. I have my equipment insurance and public liability through them.

OTOH, if your business is picking up, I assume that you're already out there doing stuff so you really need insurance already. As I recall the PL insurance wasn't really that much, maybe £60 or so for the entire year. you'll be likely spending more than that going to the wedding fair.

If you are doing any filming commercially, you really should take out PL insurance. As Dave said, it is a minimal cost to protect yourself. Mine is with Fortis and costs me less than £50 pa. for £2m cover.

Roger

Standard out here now for PL insurance is usually AU$20 million worth of cover. You can't film in any public place, airport or venue now without it. Most of the large venues now ask for a PL certificate of currency before they will allow you in to set up. Most of them also ask for a fully completed OH&S statement plus insist that all your mains powered kit has been inspected, certified and tagged by authorised inspectors. Another recurring cost every twelve months.

If your electrical gear is not inspected and tagged that is an 'out' on the public liability cover if any sort of electrical problem is involved. Hear about the apocryphal story in Sydney where the cameraman had one of his Lowell lights too close to a sprinkler heat sensor. The sensor tripped and then triggered a whole convention room. About $230Ks worth of damage to venue, the attendees, their clothes and their laptops etc.

Not worth doing business without third party cover. All you need is someone's old grandmother to trip on a cable and then sue you up hill and down dale. Worse still injure a child with a red hot piece of lighting bubble on them. In the past I've had a number of Red Head and 2K bubbles blow and the only thing that stopped them from scattering burning hot glass everywhere were the scrims. L-o-v-e LEDs!

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

£2-5m cover would be the norm in the UK for a small wedding shooter, I can't imagine a situation where a videographer shooting a typical wedding in the UK is going to need £20m PL cover. A large commercial outfit flying equipment over crowds in a higher risk situation with a bigger crew will have a higher PL requirement.

Electrical PAT test certificate is another area that you may be asked about, however, you usually get asked by people who know nothing about it because they have been told to by others that know nothing about it. If you are only using battery powered equipment, you do not need a PAT test certificate in the UK, only for direct mains powered gear, lights, chargers etc. If like me, you are using battery powered cameras, lights, sound recorders etc, there is no requirement. If you are charging batteries, then the charging equipment will need to be certified.

Sometimes, junior managers just like to throw their weight around and it is useful to know when they are wrong in addition to complying with the legal requirements where necessary.

Roger

On the subject of Towergate.

We currently use them but recently found out that they will only insure upto £15k of gear in your car. They can do more at home and onsite. This is also a hard limit and you cannot go over it as their underwriters wont allow it. So worth being aware.

This came up last week when we sent them our inventory for a renewal and they said £30k in the car was too much.

We have since moved to Aaduki who can up the limit for a price.

I think for the new business which come in at under £15k in gear it was £350 a year for gear, liability and indemnity.

If you do plan to start doing this more and more then look into full gear coverage. It hasnt happend to us yet but we do know of people who have come acropper of the sticky finger brigade and lost gear. We almost lost an audio recorder once when a guest saw it on a table and thought "Oooo, ill have that". You can factor the cost into your prices.

Also, often your house insurance wont cover items used for business purposes. We could name items over a certain value on our home policy but if you used your home for business it instantly invalidated the entire policy. Both Towergate and Aaduki can do home insurance too which covers you.

I use Morgan Richardson, they have been good so far.

I had a claim for an old XL1s that fell into sea water on job. As they did not have a similar replacement camera in canon range at that time they gave me new for old and coughed up £5000.

So far am happy with their service.

Short term insurance is rarely economically viable - because they consider that if you believe you need it for one day, then what you are doing is 24 hours of risk, rather than just a a small number of hours high risk per year, so they may not even wish to cover you.

To be frank, if you do not have PLI, then it's a bit crazy. Also note that many councils require £10 million cover now from contractors, and most PLI cover has increased. I get mine through the union - BECTU.

H&S zealots usually are happy with the stickers, and rarely ask for certificates, as there's no requirement for any certification, just evidence of test to demonstrate a safe system is in place. Don't forget that there is no longer a re-test date required on a sticker either.

You can buy 100 green PAT stickers on eBay for a few pounds to label your plugs & satisfy the H&S jobsworths.

A point to remember with the PAT (Portable Appliance Test) is that it's like an MOT, it only means that the gear was OK at the time it was tested, Also, you don't need it if the gear is new, although I expect that doesn't apply if you made up the mains connectors yourself (eg extension leads).

Thanks everyone for your input.

I went with Dave Partington's first suggestion of getting PL through Towegate Camerasure... Where the hell did you get £60 from? Overall I'm paying £208 for the year just for PL, with assistant cover and £2m coverage.

Due to personal circumstances i literally had to get this at the last minute and had no time to shop around/research. I just had to buy it!

I think it's £60 to add it onto one of their gear insurance policies.

I think it's £60 to add it onto one of their gear insurance policies.

True. Sorry if you felt mislead Jordan but I've never bought PL without also getting the other insurance I needed at the same time.

Our latest premium was £800 :) running a business is a bitch sometimes.

Our latest premium was £800 :) running a business is a bitch sometimes.

Ours wasn't far off that too Danny. Yup, that and the accountants bill are two of the big ticket items that most beginners don't think about when pricing their videos.

I've been with Aaduki for a few years now. My last premium was £421, covering £16370 equipment (£14370 away from premises), plus £6000 computer stuff at premises, plus £2m public & products liability, £75000 prof indemnity. A significant bill but not in the £800 league thank goodness. I had a few standard conditions amended such as unattended gear in car covered later into the evening.

Thats a massive bill for the OP to get Pl cover! Must be because its standalone and for an unknown no track record applicant (as the insurer would see it).

I'm a sole trader rather than a limited company so my accountancy bill is not as high as it might otherwise be but it still comes in at £560 + vat p.a. :- ( I keep spreadsheets and folders for the invoices etc rather than use specific accountancy software as I find that easier to use and understand than double entry. I know some accountants are cheaper if you keep your own records using Sage or suchlike.

Pete

Ours is so high as its £30k in gear including unattended in the car. PL, PI and UAV drone PL cover which is £300 on it's own. Also in that it the £6k of computer gear.

We were with tower gate but they had a hard £15k in the car limit. Adooki have it too but they can extend beyond if you pay more. Towergate was a non-movable limit. Kind of seemed pointless insuring our gear for its value at home and on site but not in the car, the most likely place for it to get stolen.

Pretty happy withe price to be honest. Never had the professional indemnity but seems like more and more couples are getting lawyer happy. Especially after seeing that poor guy who actually did an amazing job but got sued. When I saw that story I thought I knew what I was about to see but the film was really good.