What insurance company do you use?

[snowmaker55]

Getting into a possible long term laser light show venue and would like to ask your opinions on laser insurance (protect against audience lawsuits) and who you are happy using and doing business? Thanks!!!

[norty303]

Would be of great help if you'd fill in your profile location, or at least state it in the thread where you are so we know whether recommending a UK insurer is applicable (I suspect not from your use of language 'lawsuits')
Its a global forum.

[snowmaker55]

Hi Norty, good point. Just updated my profile. The shows will be in the USA.

[dsli_jon]

Hey Mr D-

...would like to ask your opinions on laser insurance..

Burlington, been with them for 15 yrs, never an issue.. Gimme a jingle.. Have heavy show-prep this week, but email works / perhaps we can chat live some am, before we roll out the door for show-setup..

Cheers,,
j

[buffo]

A local underwriter (Southern Cross Underwriters) issues policies for me on an as-needed basis. I literally just started calling around until I found someone.

I used to get annual insurance, but it turns out that single-event policies were cheaper than an annual blanket policy, especially since "event insurance" was a line-item I could bill the client for. The best part was that I always had a declarations page with the event name, date, and the promoter listed as "co-insured" to hand them. They seemed to like that better than just a copy of my standard business insurance declaration.

Interestingly enough, the policy was ultimately issued through Lloyds of London. Go figure. 2 million per incident, 5 million per event costs around 400 bucks, and it all gets paid by the client.

Adam

[norty303]

I pay £250 annually for my 5mill £ liability cover. Your 'per event' costs sound excessive by comparison Adam, but I guess if the client picks them up, who cares...?

[Bradfo69]

I have general liability insurance that I got through Bolt Insurance and pay about $750 per year. It doesn't get into specifics regarding lasers but, they know that's what the business is. I had a hard time finding someone and tried a company specializing in DJ insurance who accepted my application and premium payment but subsequently cancelled me after a couple weeks since they determined I wasn't specifically a DJ. (Premium was refunded.)
.
I'm working on getting Bolt the information they need to determine if they can actually insure the gear itself. They want models, serial numbers, value etc., and it's taking awhile to accumulate all of that.

[buffo]

When I used to have an annual policy, it was between $800 and $1000, but the liability limits were lower (1 million per incident, 2 million annual) and they charged me a fee ($125) every time I needed to add a "co-insured" party to the policy for a given event. Since nearly every promoter required that they be listed as co-insured on the declarations page, I was getting killed on those fees. That's why I went to the per-event policy, even though it was quite a bit more expensive. The real benefit (apart from the increased liability limit) was the ease with which I could tuck all my insurance costs into the quote as a line-item so the client paid for it.

Adam

[snowmaker55]

Thanks for a lot of feedback and groups to talk to. So how does the ILDA insurance work? Is there a Policy or just guideline about the need for insurance? Still sifting through their website and getting ready to join. Thanks for any feedback on that and also any other insurance companies to check into.

[buffo]

To the best of my knowledge, ILDA is not currently suggesting any one company for laser light show company insurance. They used to have a special arrangement with an insurance company that did offer policies to ILDA members, but that was a long time ago.

Adam