The Importance Of Protecting Your Freelance Film Production Company

Any business owner worth their salt will tell you the importance of having a plan in place to protect your business from disaster. As a large company, damaged devices, property, and other assets can be extremely problematic for the continuity of your business, in some cases. Similarly, having members of your team getting injured or falling ill can also slow down your productivity, and these problems are only amplified for smaller businesses or independent freelancers.

As a film producer, you will spend a lot of your time shooting and editing and running into one of these problems could drastically harm your business and cause you to lose clients if you can no longer fulfil the terms of a contract. Here is why it is so important to have some form of protection in place for different aspects of your business, as well as the types of precautions you can take.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

When you are working for a client, especially when things aren’t entirely black and white as is often the case for creative jobs, occasionally you may do something that the client will not agree with. More often than not, these things can be altered and remedied to bring both your vision and your client’s vision in line with each other.

However, in some cases, these differences are not reconcilable, and your client may feel strongly enough about what they perceive to be a mistake you have made that they will take action. This may be in the form of refusing to pay you for your work, or even threatening you with a legal battle.

These sorts of things are not uncommon but for larger businesses, they are quite easy to deal with while completing further work for other clients. However, as a freelancer, this can be incredibly disruptive and costly. Indemnity insurance can help to cover the costs of settling claims like this to reduce the amount of disruption you might face, at least from a financial standpoint.

Public Liability Insurance

When out and about filming, you will often be coming into contact with other members of the public. It is during this time that you might inadvertently cause harm to someone, or someone may claim that the harm that befell them was caused by your actions or equipment.

You may have trailing cables from microphones, or pieces of equipment that jut out and this could cause someone to trip or get injured in some way without you realising. You might also damage someone else’s property such as scratching a car or a wall, and this may result in you having to deal with lawsuit. Public liability insurance will cover you in events like this, dealing with compensation and legal fees so that you don’t have to pay out of your own pocket.

Business Interruption Insurance

As mentioned earlier, certain things that are out of your control can drastically interfere with your work, and these interruptions in your business can be extremely damaging to your finances. For example, if you pay rent on equipment or an office space and cannot work for a certain period of time, you might start to struggle to handle those overheads while also having the funds needed to live your life.

A crisis scenario such as flooding or a fire causing damage to your property and equipment, can essentially end your whole business if you don’t have the means to recover. This is business interruption insurance comes in handy. If you’re looking to handle your small business insurance needs such as business interruption insurance, to make sure that you will be able to return to normal after an unexpected event like this, companies such as The Hartford can provide cover that will suit you and your business.

Contents Insurance

As a business owner that works with a lot of equipment, you’ll understand the need to keep these things safe. Tripods, cameras, lenses, and computers for editing, are all essential for you to complete your work for clients when producing films and losing these can be devastating. Whether the loss is caused by accidental damage or theft doesn’t matter; what matters is being able to remedy this problem hastily so that you can continue with your work.

You will want to have some form of contents insurance for your business, with cover that accounts for loss and damage of equipment when away from your registered office space. You should also endeavour to add every important piece of equipment to this plan so that if they should sustain damage, get lost, or stolen, you will be able to claim on your insurance to replace them.

Cyber Security Support

One major thing that business owners should also consider when looking to protect their company is their cyber security. Getting high-quality cyber security support is essential when it comes to keeping your business safe, as well as your clients. With the advancement of technology of the years, so too did hacking capabilities advance as well as the software that enables them.

Cyberattacks continue to get worse each year, with more and more people being targeting by increasingly convincing scams and businesses are prime targets. This is why it’s important to keep your data and the data of your clients and partners safe by using high-end cybersecurity services, as well as considering cyber risk insurance, too.