Tag: insurance

Undercover (4)

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Travel and personal accident

You need to think about what could happen to you. Travel insurance is one of the messiest and worst sold types of insurance in the UK. Millions of travellers holiday without it and competition between providers is so fiercely price-based that cover levels have been severely cut back. When the Icelandic volcano ash cloud disrupted air traffic, most insurers said claims were not covered.

But that just means we need to take extra care when buying ravel insurance. First, we need to think about being covered for work trips and not just holidays. If you travel for work you will need to pay extra for those journeys to be included.

Activity holidays

You will need to be clear about what you might be doing on your trips too. We all know that winter sports – skiing and snowboarding – are not covered unless you buy the extra cover, but many other activities are typically excluded or have reduced cover. Very few insurers, for example, will cover you riding a motorbike bigger than 125cc – you’ll need to find an insurer that will if you intend to ride your own bike on your travels or hire a bike while away. Many other activities, such as horse-riding, may be added to standard policies but it may be better to consider a policy specifically aimed at that activity.

If you are going mountain-climbing, or white water rafting, or taking part in any other activity that is likely to put you at risk in an unusual location, it might be best to consider a specialist policy - the claims departments will have access to specialist search and rescue services and have medical teams that understand how to rescue injured people from cliff tops or ravines (your run-of-the-mill medical assistance firm will know how to deal with hotel food poisoning, sunburn and car accidents on motorways).

Day tripper

You also need to consider being covered for day trips – some policies kick in when the travel involves one night’s stay abroad whereas you might fly out for the day and return that evening. There’s no point in having a travel insurance policy that doesn’t cover you for a day trip to Dublin, Paris or Brussels.

And then there’s the need for travel insurance to cover UK travel too. If you book a staycation but need to cancel it due to unforeseen circumstances you’ll need travel insurance to get your money back. But more than that, if you have an accident while away, sure, the NHS will patch you up and put you back together again but the NHS does not have to pay for you to be brought home and treated in your local hospital. Travel insurance would provide a private ambulance, once you were safe to travel, to bring you to a hospital nearer home or your family.

Add all these demands together and you almost certainly won’t be able to buy a standard travel insurance package online or from a direct insurer. You’ll need a broker to find a specialist policy for you.

Accidents never happen (in a perfect world)

Another policy well worth considering is personal accident insurance. Elements of this are often included in a travel policy – if you lose a limb, for example, it pays out a fixed sum. But a standalone policy can have added benefits for freelances: you can buy daily benefits should you be temporarily disabled – if an actor should literally “break a leg”, for example.

You will need to calculate how much income you would need if you were unable to work. This income is not taxed so you only need to cover your after-tax income. The more you need, the more expensive the insurance, but it is much cheaper than you think. The policy will not pay out for the first seven days, normally, though there might be additional exclusions, such as not paying out for 14-days if you had the accident carrying out a dangerous activity. But the policy will pay out for up to two years.

Of course, you could just say it will never happen to you. But having been involved in a car crash that left my wife (another freelance) in hospital for four months and in the care of social services for a further six, I’ve learned my lesson the hard way. I didn’t have personal accident insurance then and was forced to sell my car and nearly lost my house.

We now have a policy that costs about £550 a year and pays out £100 a day for each of us if we’re injured. I calculated that rate on the basis that if one of us were in hospital, the other would be forced to work much less. As it happens, our only claim was when I broke my wrist. I was in plaster for a little over three weeks. The first seven days were not covered but I was paid £1,700 for the 17 days after that until the plaster was removed.

Talk to your broker about the right level of personal accident insurance for you.

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Undercover (3)

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Are you liable?

Could you be sued? It’s a scary prospect – and while we’re not as bad as in the US yet, the country is getting more litigious.

People do look to see if they can sue and parasitic claims management companies are advertising and texting and calling up to see if you have had an accident to try to push you into making a claim (and slicing off a piece for themselves). So you need to make sure you are covered.

PL and PI

In general there are two main kinds of insurance you might need – public liability and professional indemnity. Public liability is straightforward - it is included in most home policies. A professional business package will include public liability for you while you are out working. You will need to make sure any other arrangements you have includes this cover too.

Public liability insurance will pay out if you injure someone while working.  So if you are taking a photo in the street and tumble off your ladder into someone or you drop a juggling ball and someone trips on it, they have the right to sue you for their injuries and possible loss of earnings.

Public liability insurance covers you both for the court costs in defending such actions if they are wrong and the cost of any damages awarded if they were justified.

You don’t have to be doing something out of the ordinary to face a possible public liability claim. If you knock into someone while wearing your business suit between meetings or accidently poke someone in the eye putting up your umbrella in a rain shower, you could be sued. Make sure you have public liability cover.

Professional risks

Professional indemnity covers damage you might cause to clients through your work being inaccurate or not up to standard. Traditionally this was just for the likes of architects, solicitors and accountants – high fee-charging professions, but these days many companies expect all sorts of media and entertainment professional to have PI insurance.

If you do training and teach someone the wrong method to do something, that can lead to a claim. PI policies are now available for a whole gamut of new “professions”, such as landscape gardeners, so many of use need cover. A specialist broker is your best bet or check if there is a scheme running for people in your line of business, perhaps through your union.

Libel and slander

You might also need to consider libel insurance. This would cover court costs and damages if you were sued for libel over something you had published or broadcast. Britain is the libel capital of the world and the advent of no-win, no-fee lawyers prepared to take libel cases for free means many more low-value cases (still close to £100,000 settlements) are happening.

Libel insurance can be expensive – the insurers will want to know what you do, for whom you write or produce films, audio or broadcasts and lots more detail besides. Again either use a specialist broker or check if your union has a scheme lined up already – the NUJ has one for its members.

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Undercover (2)

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Keeping your kit covered

Many freelance creatives have a lot of expensive kit they need insured. This could be laptops, recording equipment and cameras; it could be artists’ materials, props and costumes; or it could be musical instruments or a DJ’s record collection. You may even have a specialist piece or kit for your particular job or act – a unicycle or a puppet theatre, for example.

If losing or damaging these would cripple your finances you must make sure they are adequately insured and will be replaced immediately. You may even need to make sure you can hire an alternative in the short term while you source a replacement.

Find a broker

If you have these sorts of needs you almost certainly need to find an insurance broker to whom you can explain your specific circumstances. Comparison websites and even specialist online business broking services can only currently cope with packaged products with limited add-ons.

Certain brokers will have specialist schemes for different sorts of professionals. David Rogerson of broker Towergate runs a scheme called Camerasure for professional photographers and videographers. The policy is underwritten by Aviva, one of the largest insurers in the country.

This sort of policy not only covers replacing your kit whether it was lost or stolen or accidentally damaged but provides rented kit in the short term and will compensate for any work lost while you are unable to work. It has a range of business covers included that would be useful for a full-time professional.

 Bells and whistles

You’d expect Rogerson to be pushing his “bells and whistles” policy hard but he understands that not every photographer has the same investment in kit or the same income from their work. “Camerasure is for the full pro,” he says. "If you are an amateur who earns a bit and you only have about £5,000 of kit, it might be possible to add that camera kit to your home contents policy. You might also be able to do that even if you are semi-professional.”

Rogerson points out that this sort of compromise might be available to other pieces of kit, including musical instruments. But if you are a full professional using your kit for work every day then a specific business-use policy is likely to be vital.

The cheap solutions are always inferior and you need to understand that when balancing price versus cover. Cheap solutions will have more exclusions and more restrictive warranties – there’s a word to watch for in insurance policies.

 Warranties

We think of a warranty as something that guarantees to repair our newly purchased products should anything go wrong – and it is. But in insurance jargon it has a second, more negative, meaning. A warranty is a restriction the insurer puts in place and you, the insured, must adhere to it for the policy to pay out. This might be that you must lock kit in the boot of a car and not have it on the back seat, for example.

Whichever policy you get always make sure you are clear on any restrictions in place and understand what is and is not covered. A broker might be able to get a particular warranty lifted for you if it is important to you, but this will almost certainly be at a cost.

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Undercover (1)

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Home and car

Insurance is what accountants think is dull. But it is vital that freelance creatives get their insurance right. Even the basics of car and home insurance need to be considered.

Iggy Pop famously caused a stink when he started advertising Swiftcover and other musicians discovered that Swiftcover would not cover them. The firm backtracked very fast once the issue hit the headlines. But the example shows why those of us freelancing in the entertainment and media fields need to be very careful to ensure we re covered.

Utmost good faith

There’s no point in lying about what you do. Insurance is based on a principle called “utmost good faith” and lying is not part of that. If you lie, an insurer is entitled to refuse your claim and simply refund you your premium, leaving you uninsured.

For most creative freelances that means using an insurance broker who knows which insurers will happily cover us or who has strong personal relationships with underwriters (the people at insurance companies who decide which risks to cover).

One of the biggest risks is called third-party liability. If you are doing a job and it might involve giving a big-name celebrity a lift in your car or having them round for dinner, you face a huge third-party liability risk. If Elton John has to cancel his world tour because he got whiplash in your car when you ran into the back of someone, your insurance company will have to pay out for the whole cost of the cancelled tour.

So if you are never going to have the likes of Elton John in your car (or home) you need to explain that to your broker, who will explain that to the underwriter, who will then come up with a decent price.

The car’s the star

Most motor policies cover you only for personal use – called social, domestic and pleasure (SDP). Some will include commuting but only to a single fixed place of work. If you need to use your car to go anywhere other than that – and we freelances tend to have lots of other places we need to drive – you need to have business use added on. Technically this is free but insurers generally offer a discount for SDP-only policies, so you will see the premium rise if you want to add business use.

Similarly, you need to let your insurer know if you work from home. There are specialist home/office policies for those running a proper business with staff and equipment from home, but many home insurers can be nudged into adding business use onto their policies at little or no extra cost. But you must tell them

Honesty is the best policy

Telling an insurer all this information often involves more than filling out an online form from one of the price comparison sites. Also, a broker has a professional duty to get you appropriate insurance. They will ask you questions to see if you are risk-adverse or risk-seeking and recommend policies that suit while pointing out any exclusions that help keep the price down – if you store your equipment in an office normally don’t expect it to be covered if you bring it home and it gets stolen or damaged.

There comes a point when it makes more sense to switch to a professional policy for your specific needs – camera cover or a specialist musical instrument policy, for example. But it depends on each individual’s circumstances. Many freelances just need to be open and honest about their work and their insurance needs. A broker will then be able to find the best deal.

David Rogerson of broker Towergate said: “It’s a misunderstanding that if you are in the entertainment trades it will cost you.”

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Towergate