General liability insurance costs video production studios an average of $29 per month, or $353 per year. This policy covers property damage and injuries to third parties, as well as advertising injury.
For more comprehensive coverage, Insureon recommends acquiring a company owner’s policy. Your video equipment is also covered by a BOP, which combines general liability and commercial property insurance.
On Insureon’s general liability insurance cost analysis page, you can learn how to save money on your policy, which coverage limits to choose, and more.
What type of insurance is recommended for every film production?
Now, without further ado, let’s look at some of the most commonly utilized film production insurance policies:
General Liability Insurance
During a film shoot, the general liability insurance policy covers any injuries and property damage. This policy, however, does not cover injuries to cast or crew members; only injuries to people who are not involved in the actual production are covered.
The worker’s compensation policy covers all cast and crew personnel participating in the film production.
This policy also covers any incidents that occur during production involving operational cars.
Every filmmaker or production business should get general liability insurance, especially if they plan to shoot in public.
You’ll almost certainly require a permission if you’re shooting your movie in public spaces. You’ll also need general liability insurance in order to get a permit.
Looking to shoot your film in public spaces but don’t know where to start? Find out more about how to get film permits and site releases.
Budget for it
Even for a one-day production, you should allocate 2 percent to 3% of your film budget for short-term insurance at the very least $2,000-$3,000. Naturally, the more complicated your production is and the more expensive your equipment is, the higher this cost will be.
You can only buy through a broker
You must go via an insurance broker to purchase production insurance. Put some effort into it because a producer may only have one broker. Three or four phone calls may be all you need to get the information you require. You most likely have acquaintances who can put you in touch with their brokers. Check out LA / NY 411 if you haven’t already.
How much is E&O insurance for a film?
“Liability coverage alone has averaged around $425 for film projects with budgets under $100,000. The cost of equipment coverage begins at $500. The average cost of negative/video loss coverage is $800-900. For projects with budgets under $250,000. Errors and omissions coverage is usually between $2,500 and $2,800. Workers’ compensation rates vary depending on the number of employees and payroll, but small businesses can frequently get coverage for as little as $400.”
How much is annual production insurance?
What is the cost of film production insurance? The response may be anything. Insurance companies set their rates based on a variety of factors, including the size of the production business, the budget of the filmmaker, the type of insurance required, and the risks involved in the production (e.g. dangerous stunts). The cost of short-term film production insurance normally starts around $400 and rises depending on the criteria listed previously. Premiums for annual or DICE policies can range from $400 to $2,500 per year.
How much does a short documentary cost?
How much does it cost to film a documentary? It is highly dependent on the documentary in question. Because the true cost of a documentary is determined by a variety of factors, it’s difficult to estimate how much YOUR documentary will cost until you’ve determined some of them.
Some documentaries are made for pennies on the dollar. Others cost tens of millions of dollars to film, edit, and distribute.
Let’s take a look at the various aspects that go into determining the exact cost of a documentary.
What’s the Average Cost of a Documentary?
You might begin by estimating the cost per completed minute of video. Many producers think that a completed corporate production or high-quality YouTube video will cost around $1,000 every finished minute of footage as a rule of thumb. The total cost can then be extrapolated based on length. As a result, a 60-minute documentary will set you back $60,000.
If you’re developing anything of greater quality, such as a feature film that will be shown in theaters or at festivals, production expenditures might range from $2,000 to $10,000 each completed minute…or even more, depending on the different aspects involved.
Those baseline figures, ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 per finished video, will give you a rough indication of how much a documentary will cost to produce. A public television documentary can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, to produce.
Shooting Costs
The first expense is the cost of shooting. This includes the cost of the workforce, which can range from $1,700 per day for a small crew to $1,700 per HOUR or more for a larger, more experienced crew, depending on the size of the crew required. The higher the prices, the more cameras, lighting, and other equipment are required.
The cost is also affected by the length of the shoot. In a sense, the longer you shoot, the more you’re racking up the bill. If you’re doing dramatizations/recreations or using on-camera talent, you’ll have to pay for talent as well.
Then there are the costs of the site. Permits, transport, and other costs associated with filming exterior shots and other outdoor settings can add up quickly, depending on the circumstances. Interview documentaries are simple to make, requiring only the rental of a studio or a hotel room for the length of filming.
Then there’s the expense of any visuals you want to incorporate, which may be quite expensive if done professionally through a studio.
Post-Production Editing Costs
Editing, like shooting, will become more expensive as time goes on and your editing requirements grow. A professional editor will typically cost between $1,000 and $2,500 per day, depending on the editor’s expertise, the quality of the work, and the level of editorial control you require.
Expenses for post-production, such as graphics, soundtracks, and sound effects, will also rise.
To keep costs down, look for public domain photos, video, and music. Those from the creative commons resources, which may require attribution but not money, are also suitable options for non-paying third-party content.
Distribution And Marketing Costs
After you’ve shot and edited your documentary, the costs of distribution and promotion, if appropriate, will be another factor in the total cost of a documentary. After all, some documentaries are three to ten minute pieces, while others are feature-length films. Furthermore, some are for business goals, while others are for wholly different reasons.
If you need to have this film marketed, into festivals, and so on, you’ll almost certainly need to pay a distributor, especially if you’re shooting the documentary on film stock.
Then there’s marketing. Traditional marketing campaigns, such as trailers and posters, have been replaced by those on YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms, but there are still fees associated with these activities unless you plan to handle it yourself.
So, how much does a documentary cost to produce? It all depends on the situation. You could build one for a few thousand dollars or a few million dollars. It all depends on which documentary you’re watching.
Do film directors get health insurance?
Crews are filming the latest episodes of some of television’s most popular shows, including Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, and Bones, inside the Fox studios in Century City. Crew members on break are waiting up outside the lot at a mobile health clinic in a converted Winnebago, seeking treatment for chronic diseases as well as routine ailments.
The film and television industries in Hollywood rely significantly on freelancers and independent contractors, who are rarely provided with health insurance by their employers. Producers, writers, performers, editors, camera operators, and prop makers work a variety of vocations around Southern California each year. After paying costly fees and dues and working enough hours on union positions, some acquire insurance through the industry’s unions. Others either pay for private insurance or go without.
Those who purchase policies through new insurance markets and have incomes that are within the restrictions will be eligible for financial assistance under the nation’s health law. However, contract workers, freelancers, and seasonal employees in a number of businesses across the United States will be in and out of subsidy eligibility, producing uncertainty and possible tax ramifications at the end of the year.
On top of the rapid job turnover and transient nature of their employment, entertainment professionals have an additional hurdle. Crew members frequently work long hours rigging lighting, moving gear, and constructing sets, which can result in accidents and high stress levels.
Entertainment professionals say they have to get inventive because their jobs rarely provide insurance. They buy a lot of medicine. They rely on the insurance of their wives. They work part-time during the day. They even marry for the sake of having consistent coverage. They visit all of their doctors when they are insured, then go weeks or months without seeing a doctor.
“They attempt to stay working,” said Bob Beitcher, CEO of the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which offers health and social assistance to the entertainment industry. “Then they hope they don’t have any health problems when they aren’t working.”
According to Beitcher, the health law was not intended for the entertainment sector. Uninsured production workers can use the fund’s temporary program to seek low-cost doctor appointments. “This is a one-of-a-kind industry,” he remarked. “Getting it correctly the first time for this group was unlikely.”
Cat Rhinehart, a Los Angeles-based comedian, hasn’t had consistent coverage in years. She went to the doctor a lot when she paid $400 a month for insurance. Rhinehart, who is now uninsured, gets the majority of her medical care from Planned Parenthood. “I used to be a hypochondriac, but I can’t afford to be anymore,” she explained. Rhinehart, on the other hand, understands the importance of maintaining her health, especially since her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 28.
Gretchen Somerfeld, a screenplay supervisor, production manager, and voiceover artist, covers herself with her own insurance. She’s been working in the entertainment sector for 26 years, largely in advertisements, and she regularly works 50 different jobs in a year. Somerfeld said she occasionally works enough hours on union jobs to qualify for coverage, but she can’t count on it. Her current insurance, which costs more than $600 a month with a $3,000 deductible, more than doubled once she began taking cholesterol medicine.
Somerfeld believes the Affordable Care Act will help her, but she is skeptical. She is unmarried and earns around $50,000 on average, just enough to qualify for insurance subsidies through the state’s health market.
“At first, Obamacare piqued my interest,” she remarked. “I’m starting to fear I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. It’s quite aggravating.”
Many of these workers, even those with insurance, don’t get to the doctor on a regular basis, according to Dennis Green, the doctor who travels from studio to studio with the mobile health van known as Health Wheels. He sees patients with high blood pressure and diabetes, many of whom cannot afford to miss work or risk losing their jobs if they do. The Motion Picture & Television Fund’s 35-foot clinic features two exam rooms, a bathroom, and a small bench where patients can wait to see a doctor.
Megan Cannon, a set decorator on Bones, needed a dermatologist recommendation on a recent morning. Cannon, who is insured by a union, believes that being able to go to an appointment while at work allows her to take better care of herself. “It’s difficult for me to schedule an appointment with a doctor,” she explained. “Our timetables are always changing.”
Aside from the convenience, Green claims that the mobile center’s mom-and-pop atmosphere makes crew members feel more at ease. And, regardless of their insurance, he can see patients swiftly during their breaks.
“On the schedule, we’ll roll onto the property with one person,” he said. “And we’ll be full.”
Employer mandates under the Affordable Care Act are expected to begin in 2015, and Hollywood production companies are attempting to find out how to comply. According to Mark Goldstein, president of Entertainment Partners, which provides production management and payroll services to firms, most production companies don’t know much about insurance and will have to figure out who they need to cover and how to avoid penalties.
“This is going to be a totally new universe for many of them,” he said. “Everyone is frantically trying to find out how it will affect them.”
Entertainment Partners intends to cover production workers with its own insurance. According to Goldstein, between 35 percent to 40 percent of production workers are not protected by unions.
Dean Menta, a music editor who had two heart surgeries in his 30s, believes that having insurance is essential. Menta got a corporate job at a video game firm a few years ago to have more consistent insurance after finding it difficult to find enough union employment to keep insured. However, the company eventually went out of business.
Menta said he has already begun speaking with an insurance broker and is looking at Affordable Care Act plans for himself and his family. Menta’s family currently pays more than $1,000 per month between his COBRA plan and the plan for his wife and children. He recently acquired a television job, which he hopes will provide him with enough hours to qualify for more affordable insurance.
Because his income as a television assistant editor varies from year to year, Jim Westrick, 35, isn’t sure if he’ll be eligible for subsidies. He currently pays for his own insurance, which costs around $170 per month and has a $3,000 deductible. Westrick stated he wouldn’t give it up despite the cost because he is afraid of being hurt or ill and becoming bankrupt.
Having to pay for his own insurance is a “occupational hazard,” according to Westrick. “It’s always been that way in the freelancing film and television business,” he remarked.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication institution that is not linked with Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent service of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Why do I need production insurance?
Whether you’re a freelance videographer or the boss of a production business, filmmaking is a hands-on experience with a lot of moving parts. Even the most careful and well-organized television pros are not immune to mishaps.
Film insurance is meant to give you peace of mind when working on a busy set. If you work in television or commercial film production, insurance can protect your finances if things don’t go as planned, such as if a member of your team is injured.
Whether you work in a studio or on location, Hiscox can help you safeguard several parts of your business by customizing production insurance.
How do I start a film production company?
What Is the Best Way to Start a Production Company?
- Choose a niche for your business. What kind of material do you intend to create as a specialty?