Photography Insurance Buying Guide: What you Need to Know
- General Liability insurance - Liability insurance is designed to protect you from lawsuits and other similar claims. For $100-$250 per year, you can get $2 million of coverage per occurrence and $4 million aggregate, depending on what insurance provider you use.
- Errors & Omissions policy (a form of Professional Liability) - In a society in which filing lawsuits is so common, it's a must-have for photographers to have an errors and omissions policy. These policies can protect you from issues that arise from trademark or copyright infringement, false advertising, invasion of privacy, and idea misappropriation. Not only does this kind of policy cover your legal defense, but it also covers damages. Additionally, this kind of coverage protects you from oversights like double booking a shoot and failing to appear at one of them. It's quite common for equipment mishaps or stolen equipment that leads to loss of your recently captured images; an errors & omissions policy could do wonders for you in such a situation. Some insurance companies don't even necessarily require you to be sued for the policy to respond and address the error!
- Auto related coverages - It's true. That trip to the bank by your part-time employee, in which your employee is involved in an at-fault accident could be on your shoulders and your risk. Non-owned Auto Liability is designed to pick up the tab here. Renting a vehicle while attending a convention? That’s Hired auto liability and widely available. In talking with our risk experts at PackageChoice and Hill & Usher, they explain how frequently uninformed, cost-squeezing or nonchalant insurance agents don’t bother offering it or including it. Worse yet, some online insurance companies don’t even bother offering it, thinking the risk is too great for them to assume.
- Professional camera equipment policy - If photography is your business and source of income, having a professional camera equipment policy is a no-brainer so that you're protected against loss, damage, or theft. Policies can vary widely in terms of valuation. Many inexpensive policies value your gear with age factored in so you receive Actual Cash Value, not cost of new replacement. Some policies are broad enough to cover you worldwide and some will insure you when gear is stolen from an unlocked motor vehicle. Rented or borrowed equipment can be insured on a blanket basis, generally in reasonable $5,000 or $10,000 increments. Beware though, few policies extend coverage to you when rent your gear to others or part with it through some deceitful act as these types of claims are nearly universal coverage exclusions.
- Scheduled Personal property policy - Many photographers work out of their homes, and mistakenly believe that if something were to happen to their photography gear that it would be fully covered under their homeowner's policy. Though this is true to an extent, many homeowner's policies have low limits for camera coverage (i.e., $2,500 or less), which could leave you high and dry if you have a stockpile of expensive professional photography gear. And many photographers have sample portfolios, props, wardrobes or business furnishings that require coverage beyond a camera equipment policy.
As much as we'd all like to think that we won't ever be in an accident, have our gear stolen, or experience a fire or flood in our office, these things - and many other kinds of calamities - occur all the time.
That means that if you want to approach building your photography business in a way that is sound and protects your investment, you need to take time to investigate what kinds of photography insurance is available and what you need to protect yourself and your business.
Insurance can be a tricky game for the layperson, though...
That's why I've put together this quick photography insurance buying guide.
Why You Need Insurance
Some photographers mistakenly believe that they only need insurance to cover their gear should something be damaged, lost, or stolen.
But that simply isn't the case.
Yes, you need coverage for your cameras, lenses, and other gear, but since you provide a service to your customers, you also need liability insurance, should something go awry during a photo shoot.
Think about it - the last thing you want is for a client to be injured after tripping over a cable that you neglected to tape down to the floor.
Actually, the last thing you want is for a client to be injured and not have liability insurance to cover any claims against you!
I'll get into the different types of photography insurance a little later, but for now, another extremely important reason you need photography insurance is that you often have to prove that you're insured to get gigs.
Rolling the dice and hoping that something bad doesn't happen might be how some photographers run their business, but other businesses - like the venue for a wedding you're supposed to shoot - might not allow you to step foot onto the premises to work without having proof of insurance.
In fact, many venues require Proof of Insurance that shows in excess of $1 million of liability coverage, that way they'll be protected if any sort of unexpected mishap occurs. Imagine the tripod that trips grandma or the hoisted wedding dress that set off the fire sprinklers throughout the whole venue happened (and insurance covered the damage caused to the dress and the hotel venue by fire sprinklers), or the pet photographer who just so happened to be there during a dog bite.
You see, photographers don’t often damage things or hurt people. After all, it’s just a camera and you. That’s why it's reasonably priced in a quality photographer policy as part of your overall insurance protection plan.
When you do need that last minute Certificate of Insurance, an agency specializing in coverage for you like PackageChoice will have a back office ready to go.
But it's not always that simple, either...
Stepping foot in a National Park for a shoot can involve a complicated series of permits and paperwork, while your General Liability policy not only must be proven, it MUST also take on some risk of the NPS through your policy and an Additional Insured Endorsement.
At times, you need Primary Non-contributory language, a waiver of subrogation or per project aggregate limits of liability.
You will want both expertise available through a knowledgeable insurance provider and a policy with built-in features for dressed up Certificates of Insurance, or you could face unexpected charges for insurance you do not understand or figure was already there.
Editor's Tip: Not sure what coverage you need for your photography business? Explore answers to common photography insurance questions.
Types of Photography Insurance Coverage
As noted earlier, there are many different kinds of coverage that you should consider having as a photographer. These include:
Photography Insurance Features You Need to Have
Not all insurance providers offer the same specific policies, let alone the same premiums, deductibles, endorsements, and so forth.
When looking for professional photography insurance, there are several features of which you should be aware.
First, make sure that your professional camera equipment policy offers replacement cost for your gear.
Replacement cost means that age is not a factor when your insurer determines the amount they'll pay at the time of loss. This is a much more desirable feature than Actual Cash Value, which some insurers use.
Actual cash value takes depreciation into account, so that $2,000 camera body that you bought five years ago might only garner a $1,200 payment at the time of claim.
Editor's Tip: Ensure that your insurance provider covers your specific type of photography. See the different businesses that can be covered.
You also want to be sure that your camera coverage can be extended to include areas outside of your home area.
For instance, if you're traveling abroad, you want an equipment policy that covers you worldwide. What's more, you want to be protected in the event of natural disasters like floods or earthquakes.
This kind of coverage is typically available for an additional charge of around 5-10 percent of the total annual policy premium.
One of the sneakier restrictions we have seen removes coverage for a pretty common situation. Your four-hour shoot is over and you are starving so you park in the local café, leaving your gear in the vehicle while you grab a quick bite.
Meanwhile, eyes are on you and your gear. After your meal, you return to find the camera bag is missing from your vehicle. Depending on the policy, you may be out of luck as some companies refuse to pay thefts from vehicles unless strict guidelines are met. The industry refers to any restriction as a Locked Car Warranty. Some are easier on your than others.
The worst of them requires that your equipment is “safely secured in a locked vehicle compartment” and “there are visible signs of forced entry to the vehicle” or the claim is refused. In this case, there better be scratches or broken glass. That crafty criminal with a slim jim just ran away with your uninsured gear.
The key here is disclosure in the insurance company’s proposal. If critical aspects of equipment coverage aren’t addressed clearly, you won’t know how coverage applies until you read the policy or file the claim. One rule of thumb – that rock bottom insurance premium probably comes with restrictions. How else would it be so low cost? Thefts are the big source of claims for photographers, and they are random, occurring in rural areas or metro areas, so there are fairly typical rates for complete coverage. Abnormally low rates? Something may have to give…
Likewise, you want a policy that includes rental reimbursement, that way if your camera is in for repair related to a covered incident, you can rent the gear you need while your gear is getting fixed.
Look for a policy that covers your computer hardware as well.
Each year, photographers across the globe suffer the unfortunate mishap of a computer hard drive getting damaged or otherwise failing.
By having computer hardware coverage, you're protected in case you lose data, images, or both.
Another feature to look for with photography insurance is to see if they cover different types of photography pursuits.
That is, you want to work with a company that offers policies for the specific type of photography you undertake, be that commercial photography, wedding photography, sports photography, photo booths, underwater photography, wedding and portrait photography, or something in between.
Furthermore, with drone photography becoming more and more popular, working with an insurance company that has policies specifically for UAV and drone coverage is a must.
Some companies, like Package Choice from Hill & Usher, offer up to $10 million in coverage to photographers and videographers for drone use. Package Choice can insure you with or without a section 107; but obtaining it will result in more choices and likely a better policy. Look in to your Section 107 drone pilot certification here.
The issue with drones is that no carriers include coverage automatically today. If you fly a drone at a wedding without coverage, your General Liability carrier will not cover injury or damage without either a dedicated drone policy or an amendment to your business policy. What’s worse is that if you sign a contract with a venue, while having your insurance company send a General Liability certificate, you could be misleading the venue and be in for a big problem all the way around if your drone drops a battery on a guest (that actually happened and it was a $35,000 bodily injury claim).
Lastly, you should look for professional photography insurance provider that adheres to the choice model.
That is, some companies have in-house private label programs with top carriers. Yet, most photography insurance “programs” out there line up with a single insurance company restricting choice.
The association programs are well-intentioned but if the one policy offered doesn’t work – or perhaps it’s just not available to you because of claims history, your location or what you do, you could be left on your own. The single carrier approach also has the disadvantage of leverage. With all policies with one carrier, the agent managing the program could arguably have a conflict of interest. Just saying.
That means that you have choices when it comes to the coverage you get, and the competition that's created between insurance companies means lower prices for you as well.
In the end, insurance is an absolute necessity, and though it can be confusing to understand if you aren't in the insurance industry, if you make the right choice when it comes to your insurance provider, you'll find that the process is one that's much smoother and with better coverage for your unique situation.
