Video Production Insurance: Everything you need to know

Video Production Insurance

When it comes to video production insurance, including editing, capture, consulting, and marketing (all of which are classified under the same classification), there is a standard set of commercial insurance coverages that must be considered.

Business Owner's Policy

The first coverage you'll want to look at is a business owner's policy, also known as a BOP.

This will be a package of coverages, including general liability insurance, which covers third-party slips, trips, falls, bodily injury, property damage.

This is going to be someone coming into maybe a studio you own or you going on location someplace else to capture video and getting hurt, that's general liability.

If you're renting a space, if you're renting an office, your landlord or whoever holds your lease is most likely going to want to have a certificate of insurance showing general liability as well because it's what's going to reimburse them in the case that you do something to their building. 

You'll also need some property coverage, including cameras, editing equipment, computers, and all that stuff. That's a business owner's policy. That's the first policy that you're going to want to purchase.

Professional Liability Insurance

The second insurance coverage you'll need is a professional liability insurance policy.

A professional liability policy may sound expensive (some video production businesses believe this is luxury insurance coverage. It is not).

Professional liability insurance doesn't have to be expensive (and in most cases, is not at all), particularly for video production and most video production-related consultants.

It's not an expensive policy, but it is an incredibly important insurance policy.

What I mean by that is that most of your work will fall, not under general liability but under professional liability in terms of its risk.

This is going to be your work product, your advice, your guidance, your expertise, really as a broad way to understand professional liability, think anytime your expertise, experience, and knowledge is involved in the work product, that's professional liability, not general liability.

So you're going to need a professional liability policy. A lot of companies will package those two coverages together. If possible, this is often the preferred way to package these coverages.

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Cyber Liability Insurance

The last coverage you'll want to consider is that far too few video-associated companies, marketing agencies, video marketing, and video agencies video production companies purchase cyber liability insurance.

The reason is that it doesn't matter how big your business is today cyber criminals are using social engineering, which is a broad term to understand how they're using your information, and your likeness to get at your clients.

Cyber attacks are not coming at your business, they're just using your likeness to attack your clients and contacts.

They may recreate your email signature. They're trying to use some part of your business to bounce off and go after your clients and get money, information, passwords, whatever out of them. And that is an enormous risk, which makes cyber just as important coverage as professional as general liability.

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The Rub

This package of coverages will cover the vast majority of your risk as a video production company.

Not all of it, of course, so you want to make sure you talk through all the specifics of your business with your insurance professional but the vast majority of your risk exposure.