Note: This is Excerpt #11 in Diane’s Diary. If you would like to read previous excerpts, you can find Diane’s Diary 1-11 here.
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Spoiler alert: This post is about insurance. There are no cute and fuzzy photos about production insurance so I've included a couple of cute and fuzzy photos of my dogs.
It’s a short post- just as a post about insurance should be.
In the blog post Diane’s Diary #11 I shared that I had neglected to get insurance for the Big Heart Ranch shoot that happened in July, 2019. This means that I had also neglected to get insurance for the first couple of shoots too. While we weren’t doing anything fancy or dangerous, you just never know what could happen. I wasn’t savvy about where to find film insurance, so I started asking some of my film friends and mentors.
I remembered that an acquaintance of mine offers film insurance. He’s awesome but his assistant wasn’t really helpful in explaining everything to me and she seemed frustrated with my constant questions. Basically, what they were giving me wasn’t helping me to compare apples to apples. Since it just confused me more, I decided to find someone who could explain it better. I don’t have a head for these types of things. Film insurance isn't rocket science, but there are long term and short term policies and documentary policies and then within each policy there are so many variables. It makes my head spin.
Then I got the name of another broker. He’s a decent guy and at end of the day, he did help me get what I need. Man, production insurance is expensive. Even though I don’t have a full-time crew, and everyone is hired as an independent contractor, and my camera people in LA who have been filming the mini-docs have their own equipment, I still need coverage.
As I begin filming the feature film more regularly, I will buy a large policy that covers the whole year so that all of my filming days and needs are covered. I have already budgeted for it. Until then, I will purchase insurance on a shoot by shoot basis.
In the next blog, we get back to the next shoot that I did (the fun stuff). Come back and find out where that was and how it all came to pass.
**NEW Mini-doc coming next week!**
If you haven’t yet had a chance to watch our first 3-minute mini-documentary, here’s a link: