How does Cross Liability coverage work?
Hello!
We came to our last blog for the month of November hoping to have enriched your life a little more with this knowledge about liability coverage in its many applications.
Well, dear reader, this is the end of our Civil Liability Month here at #MondayBlog!
Do you remember that we said that what is interesting in Civil Liability coverage is to check what is covered and what is excluded?
Based on this information, we'll look back on our posts from this month and fill in the Civil Liability blanks in a shooting, and that way it'll be much easier to understand the subject coverage of our post today, the Cross Liability.
General/Filming Liability, when applied to an audiovisual, covers the amounts that you must legally pay to third parties for material or bodily damages caused during the execution of the production.
But does this coverage cover ALL types of damages? No. That's why there are additional coverages.
Thus, damages to the production company's employees are covered by the Employer's Liability.
Material damage caused involuntarily to the property of buildings and/or premises belonging to a third party is covered by Entrusted Property.
Damage to occupied buildings for production purposes, such as fire, explosions, broken glass, electricity and water damage, are protected under Liability for Buildings.
And, involuntary material and/or bodily damages caused to third parties, resulting from accidents related to the circulation of production land vehicles fall under the Civil Liability for Land Vehicles coverage.
So far so good, right?
What happens if a scenography montage supplier causes harm to your sonography supplier?
That's when the important Cross Liability coverage comes into action!
CROSS LIABILITY
What is Cross Liability coverage?
The coverage of Cross Liability, within audiovisual productions and events, exists to solve a big problem. It comes to deal with damages that could happen between its suppliers during its production.
That is, this coverage sees each supplier previously informed in the contracting of your insurance as an individual insured within your policy, making this service provider into someone subject to the terms, limits and other pre-established conditions in the coverage that you, the producer, contracted in its audiovisual production insurance.
Thus, if a supplier causes damage to another while performing services for your film production, your insurance policy can indemnify this involuntary damage, whether material and/or bodily.
It is very important to emphasize that this coverage will only be valid while the insured are providing services to the main insured (individual defined in the policy), through a contract, the coverage ceasing with the termination of the work and/or contract. And in the event of the dismissal of any individual or legal entity listed in the contract with the main insured, this will be automatically excluded from the insurance.
The law prevents people and institutions from prosecuting themselves. In a common Liability policy, where there are many policyholders, there is the impossibility of those policyholders suing each other.
That's why Cross Liability coverage is so interesting. It allows each company to be covered and still be able to sue any of the other members of the working set within a production, in case of negligence, which generate bodily harm or damage to property.
However, every company must have its own annual Professional Liability policy, regardless of their joint activities in your audiovisual project.
The Cross Liability policy exists to guarantee your protection when other companies in your service cause or suffer cross damages, that is, harm each other when working on your production.
Case Study
Let's go to our example. During the filming of a series, the insured hired an outsourced company to take care of the scenography and costumes, since the series was from the period era and needed special care and people who understood well about the clothes and objects used in the past.
He also hired a specialist lighting and special effects company. So far, so good.
The problem was that on the last day of filming the series, part of the lighting on the set caught fire and damaged a good part of the scenography company's assets.
It was discovered that there were loose and bare wires and that the specialist company did not take proper care.
How is the Liability coverage triggered in this case and how would the regulation be?
The costume company sued both your production company and the lighting company.
The bases used for the process were that you, as a producer, should have hired a more careful company that follows safety standards and not an unprepared company.
However, you had done your homework and all the information was positive.
The neglect was actually on the part of the supposed lighting and special effects company.
Therefore, once it is proven that there is a service provision contract duly signed between your producer and the two companies involved in the claim, and the damage and guilt, which are the basis of any liability coverage, is confirmed, the insurer will pay the crossed damages caused in our example, respecting the maximum indemnity limit signed in the policy that your producer contracted.
In fact, Cross Liability coverage is a way to avoid unnecessary headaches. Imagine getting in the middle of this battle in the example above? There is nothing better than tossing this responsibility to the insurance company.
We ended our month with a golden key, didn't we?
And don't worry, civil liability will continue to be part of our lives and yours here on our Blog.
We look forward to seeing you for our next #MondayBlog.
Have a great week, lovers!
Prospecto Seguros
Learn more:
Audiovisual Production
Errors and Omissions
Equipments
Drones
Life and Personal Accidents