How does General Liability coverage for filming work?
Hello!
Welcome to Liability Month here at #MondayBlog!
Our theme this week is coverage of General Civil Liability in the audiovisual sector, or for intimates, the Filming Liability .
This makes it easier to understand the reasoning behind the coverage, although it is not so simple in execution.
If there is an accident on your movie set that causes DAMAGE to a third party, and if that accident/damage can be directly linked to your production company due to unintentional FLAW, or negligence of any kind, pray that you have taken out liability coverage powerful. Some of these processes can run into the millions, and we're not exaggerating.
So much so, that in events in Brazil the minimum amount of coverage for General Liability/Events, determined by law, is 1 million reais. And if you are producing a job with a foreign company, or filming abroad, you will not be able to film without a policy with an insured amount of less than 1 million dollars, which today would be around 5 million reais in Insured Amount.
What is Filming Liability Coverage?
The film civil liability covers the amounts you must pay, legally, to third parties for material or bodily damage caused during the execution of the production.
When we talk about special branch coverage, whose insurance is multi-risk, such as events and movies, it is necessary to look at RC coverage with a focus on exclusions, as the coverage tends to function as layers of protection that are added to the their risk, as they are contracted.
No wonder there are so many CL coverages to be hired, do you want to see the list? Take a look at our post “What it means to be civilly liable?”, and refreshes the memory. The post is short.
For that reason, let's clear up right away what Filming Civil Liability DOESN'T COVER.
It does not cover damage to production company employees, it does not cover damage to third-party property borrowed or leased to carry out the production, it does not cover damage to the property you are filming in, and it does not cover damage to land vehicles in the production service. All of these situations receive protection under the specific coverages that bear their name and are considered additional General Liability/Film coverages.
The coverage of Filming Liability is a basic coverage, for this reason all the others are added to it within your audiovisual insurance policy.
Case Study
As usual, let's work with an example to explain coverage. Imagine the following scenario, you are shooting on a street, external shooting of a cinematic rain scene. Your producer is in possession of all the necessary documentation, everything is going well, when someone on your team connects an extra piece of equipment to the electrical network and boom! The whole street loses electricity.
The filming is interrupted because there is no light and to make matters worse there are a lot of people coming out of the houses wanting to know what happened.
The company responsable for the eletricity is called and they start work after a few hours, obviously, to restore the electricity in the street.
Nothing extreme will happen at this time, as no one knows for sure what happened and it could have been a failure of the energy supplier. But two months later a court notice arrives on your desk, the power failure that day, according to the supplier company, was due to misuse and apparently what caused all the fuss was your footage. So much so that one of the residents has filed a lawsuit against you for property damage and is demanding that you pay for all your electronics that burned that day.
And the thing gets worse, it's a joint action, one more resident is complaining, because his elderly father, who depends on a respirator, almost died due to lack of energy. If his ventilator's battery had lasted a little less, or the repair had took a little longer, something tragic could've have happen. Due to the electrical failure, the resident had to call an ambulance and he wants reimbursement for this expense.
How is the LIABILITY coverage triggered in this case?
When a lawsuit is brought against you in court, Civil Liability coverage tends to be triggered. Whether your case will be covered or not is another situation, but if there is a lawsuit for material or bodily damages against your producer, dear reader, the first thing to look for is the civil liability coverage present in your policy.
In our example above, in the first instance we have two claims for property damage, but the second case may result in bodily harm if any sequel is found in the elderly person in our example, due to the lack of electricity having interfered with his ventilator.
How would the regulation of this case be?
Once the insurer is called, it will carry out its own investigation and determine whether there was fault of its producer in the event, fault and/or unintentional negligence. Once the fault in these damages has been proven, the insurer will verify if your insurance covers the aforementioned situations, and if so, it can try to enter into an agreement with the claiming parties, with the objective of reducing the amount of the indemnity.
If the agreement is not reached, it will be necessary to wait for the judge's decision and then the insurer will indemnify the amount, always respecting the limit established in your contracted insurance.
We would like to make it very clear that this is a simplification of the process. Civil Liability cases tend to take time, as they involve judges, lawyers and all these means tend to take a while.
What's your verdict on Filming Liability coverage? Did you understand?
Got doubts? Just send your questions and we'll explain without complicating it.
We sincerely hope that you, dear reader, are enjoying our Liability Month here at #MondayBlog.
Next week there will be more and we will talk about Entrusted Property Liability and Civil Liability For Buildings.
Don't miss it!
Have a great week, lovers!
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