Reinforcing its commitment to provide the entire live event production community, from touring entertainment to corporate special events, with the information needed to prepare for the risks that can impact any live event, Take1 Insurance today announced the availability of new white paper entitled “Contingencies Matter.” It’s available for download (here).
“Event production already has a number of types of insurance that can cover things like property damage and loss of income,” Take1 Executive Vice President & Program Director Scott Carroll said today. “If a lighting truss topples and crushes a rack of amplifiers for the PA system, a standard property-damage policy will address the equipment owner’s loss of the gear and loss of the use of the gear. And if, someone was injured in that incident, there are standard liability policies that will cover that.”
However, given the increasing number and scale of live events, another category of coverage is becoming critical: contingency insurance. When a concert, a play, or a private, charitable or political event must be cancelled or postponed, how do those funding the activity recoup their expenses they’ve already laid out or access available funds to reschedule? The answer is contingency insurance: policies intended to provide coverage for loss of income, loss of expenses already paid and extra expenses required to reschedule and event when there is a business interruption that is not covered under the standard property business income forms.
“Everyone from Fortune 500 companies to mom-and-pops are looking to live events to boost their market profiles and sales, as the customer experience (CX) has become the holy grail of the market economy,” Carroll emphasized. “According to data compiled by market researcher Bizzabo, B2B events reached $512 billion in annual spend five years ago and have been moving upwards ever since, with 21% of planners reporting event budgets over $1 million and 32.8% of event planners with event budgets under $100,000. Everyone, it appears, has gone live.”
However, real-time events have to contend with real-world exigencies, ranging from inclement weather to equipment failures and performer no-shows to truly unpredictable occurrences: not every event planner, for instance, could have predicted the civil unrest in San Juan, Puerto Rico before citizens there began to protest the island’s governor, or the Yellow Jackets in Paris.
“Contingency insurance will only become more necessary as the market evolves,” Carroll concluded. “The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that employment of meeting, convention, and event planners —a key indicator of the entire sector — is projected to grow 11 percent from 2016 to 2026, faster than the average for all occupations. With ever-increasing costs to put on events and so many businesses having a significant potential loss of income and prepaid expenses, contingency insurance is one of the few options available to make all stakeholders whole.”
