Piggybacking off the insured

[sfoster]

I understand some people pay a yearly premium for film insurance.

It seems like instead of buying insurance for myself, maybe I could find someone that already has a yearly contract.. maybe pay them a fraction of what it would cost to buy insurance myself, and then take them on board as a producer and use their insurance for my film.

Is there a problem with doing something like that ?

 

[Scoopicman]

Great question! I've pondered this for awhile. A friend of mine runs a video business and has insurance (liability, workman's comp) and regularly hires people for projects. He has actually been an associate producer for one of my projects. I mentioned the possibility of shooting under the umbrella of his business, with him as producer. He didn't balk at it. We haven't explored it further, though.

 

[wheatgrinder]

Think about it like this:

Can I use your car insurance for a month? I'm a very safe driver, I promise.

 

[Scoopicman]

Think about it like this:

Can I use your car insurance for a month? I'm a very safe driver, I promise.

Think about this: I'm a passenger in your car. I'm not driving it.

The person who becomes your producer, becomes your partner. I think that's the only way it could fairly work. You couldn't just pay them a pittance to borrow their insurance. Their business has to be in control over what can or can't be shot. If there is a scene that looks to be a risk, s/he can nix that. The insurance is there so you can get permits, etc.

 

[wheatgrinder]

That makes sense, but If I'm your producer, then I'm part of the project and expect a chance at some return for my taking on the risk. Ill expect to have some say in what goes on. Im not going to let you set up your shots on train bridges for example under my insurance. So expect some reduction in creative freedom.

So either I'm your friend and I produce because were buddies and have shared trust, or its a biz proposition. If its biz, then I gotta watch my butt!

Not impossible by any means, but its a good analogy to work from.

 

[Scoopicman]

Yes, I agree with what you just said. I was adding what you just brought up to my above post, when you wrote that.

 

[wheatgrinder]

we will just have to agree to agree... lol

 

[sfoster]

Think about it like this:

Can I use your car insurance for a month? I'm a very safe driver, I promise.

You can insure your car for other drivers.. and yes, if you have a safe record and you're going to pay me money. Sure I'd love to make a couple of extra bucks for doing absolutely nothing.

But as others have implied.. if you're going to take a car out street racing on my insurance.. well thats another story

 

[Will Vincent]

You're on the right track, sort of, wheat.. but it would be somewhat more like insuring your child/spouse to drive your car.

The missing piece here is that although that portion of the analogy may be agreeable and acceptable, it does expose the insurance policy to a higher probability of claims, which would then raise the rate or even potentially lead to cancellation.

If the person who's actually insured is ok with that additional (however small it may be) liability, then there's no big deal here that I can see. Provided the insurance company is agreeable to extending that umbrella to cover your production, and there's minimal/low cost involved for the additional riders necessary for anything extra your production may need.

Ultimately it sounds very similar to the way that insurance works for people in film school

 

[jax_rox]

I would be interested in the specific insurance policy/coverage you're looking for - as far as I'm aware, there's actually no such thing as 'film insurance' but there are a lot of policies that a production will take out to cover the production (all of which cover film, but none of which are called 'film insurance').

What coverage you're looking for is potentially going to affect whether you can 'borrow' someone else's.

As far as I can tell, this would be unlike film school insurance, as film school insurance works under the principle that the students are essentially 'working' for the school. In this case, you would not be working for your friend.

 

[sfoster]

Well for me in particular, I'd like to film a chase sequence in a city with guns involved. I know how crazy that sounds.. smh. but this is for a masterpiece

I figure for something like that, i'd have to alert the police.. in which case i'd have to have a permit.. in which case i'd have to have insurance. prices sure to skyrocket.

 

[sfoster]

Provided the insurance company is agreeable to extending that umbrella to cover your production, and there's minimal/low cost involved for the additional riders necessary for anything extra your production may need.

How would the insurance company know the difference, since people who pay an annual premium can do as many films as they'd like.

I've never paid for any sort of 'film insurance' so I don't know the details here.

 

[directorik]

For many years I carried full production coverage because I was
shooting enough projects to justify the expense. Many people
asked to piggyback on my insurance as a way for them to save
money. It comes down to who do I trust? I have a spotless record
so my yearly premiums were low. One claim and they go up. A
couple of claims and they go up.

In my case I allowed it three times. Each time to someone I knew
and trusted and really wanted to help. It didn't hurt the deal that
I was hired to be on the productions. No one who I did not know
very well every came up with a proposal that was an advantage to
me.

So for those of you asking to piggyback on someones insurance to
save yourself money my suggestions would be to figure out not
how it can help you, but what advantage it is to the person/company
that has the yearly coverage.

 

[sfoster]

rik, my thought would be to find out how much it would cost me to buy insurance, then offer to give them 50% to piggy back on their insurance. but if premiums can really hike i can understand no one wanting to do that for a stranger

 

[directorik]

Like any insurance, when a claim is filed the premiums go up.

Just so we have a number to play with:

I pay $5,000 per year for production coverage. If you need short term
coverage for the average feature it may cost $2,000. So you pay me
$1,000. Not bad for both of us. I do that with six people and I'm making
one large a year.

Now I never asked but I wonder if that's legal. Seems like I could advertise
and find 10 people a year to do that. The insurance company loses money,
I make money five large and ten other filmmaker save money.

But back to just doing to for one person. Not as a favor to a friend but to
a complete stranger; if it's legal and if no claim is filed then whats the harm,
right? If it's legal but a claim is filed and my insurance goes up even $500
a year I lose money on my third year.

Personally I can't imagine allowing someone I'm not close to to do that. Using
the car insurance example; I know all insurance companies allow you to add
cars and it's cheaper. Can I add cars of people I don't know to help them save
money?

 

[sfoster]

I'm imagining on the 12 driver they're going to start getting suspicious haha

I'm not sure if it's legal either, that would likely require an examination of the fine print. How much of a % of a film musty ou own for it to fall under your premium, etc

 

[Will Vincent]

Dunno about legality, but reselling your policy is probably a breach of contract since it ultimately is exposing the insurance company to unknown risks that they haven't had the opportunity to do risk analysis on to use when determining your premiums.

However, if instead the person who already happens to have said policy just so happens to be a producer on all of your films, and his policy is used to insure the production, and he chooses to use some of his monetary compensation to pay his insurance policy.. (nudge nudge, wink wink) that's a position that'd be defensible, even in court.

 

[directorik]

Exactly, Will. for the years I carried full production insurance not
every film my company made was "mine". But it was ours. And
the budgets included a line item for insurance which went to the
fees we paid.

So it seems the solution is to not piggyback but to find a prodCo
that is willing to enter a co-production.

 

[sfoster]

Hmm… now the trick will be finding that coproducer!!
It'll probably help if I get these other two films finished post production first

Thanks guys

 

[Scoopicman]

Well for me in particular, I'd like to film a chase sequence in a city with guns involved. I know how crazy that sounds.. smh. but this is for a masterpiece

Uh oh! This is a good example of risk, and why the insurance holder needs to be in a producer position to make the go ahead decision. Car chase?

as far as I'm aware, there's actually no such thing as 'film insurance'

The local Film Offices, Nevada and some other places, require a million dollar (or more) liability and Worker's Comp insurance, in order to obtain a permit. In my case, I wanted to shoot EXILE in the Valley of Fire, where STAR TREK: GENERATIONS (where Kirk dies) was shot. I didn't want park rangers kicking out my cast/crew, and a permit could solve that. I got the million dollar liability from State Farm, but was then cancelled days later.

I talked to my good friend, Paul, about having him produce, since he had the required insurance. Then, I got a call from a friend in Utah, who explained that we could get simple Encroachment permits, which is what we ultimately did. It was a 5 hour drive to get there, but totally worth it. No hassles, at all.