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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board => Topic started by: brian maddox on July 12, 2018, 12:29:55 PM
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While i've never needed it in the past, times change and i now have several clients that are asking me to provide of Certificate of Insurance. I know the basics, but i'd welcome anyone's experiences regarding this.
To be clear, i'm not a gear provider. I'm just that guy they hire to show up and push the faders up and down. So, we're just looking for basic liability and worker's comp [unless i don't know as much as i think i know].
Thanks in advance.
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I am also interested in this. Same boat, usually.
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The state of your residence, the state in which your business is based, the state in which you perform work, and the entity form of your business, all affect whether you as the owner of the business need to be personally
covered by workers' compensation insurance. There is no "one size fits all" answer, because the workers' compensation laws vary significantly between the states in the USA. I suggest that you have a detailed discussion with your insuance agent, especially if you engage in cross-border work. (Sad to say, a big part of my day job involves sorting through this sort of fact-specific analysis.)
Best wishes.
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The state of your residence, the state in which your business is based, the state in which you perform work, and the entity form of your business, all affect whether you as the owner of the business need to be personally
covered by workers' compensation insurance. There is no "one size fits all" answer, because the workers' compensation laws vary significantly between the states in the USA. I suggest that you have a detailed discussion with your insuance agent, especially if you engage in cross-border work. (Sad to say, a big part of my day job involves sorting through this sort of fact-specific analysis.)
Best wishes.
Mark's right, talk to your agent.
With workers comp, as the owner/officer I used to exclude myself because the state allows it and the customers just wanted the certificate for their audits/files.
General liability since your not rigging/staging shouldn't be too crazy.
In the states where we work the owner can be excluded from worker's comp and only cover the employees. Which used to be great for me as a savings, but one of our customers ended up in a law suit because a small subcontractor, who excluded himself from worker's comp got hurt. Now that customer requires me, as the owner to be covered too, which cost thousands a year.
So not only do you need to talk to the your agent, but you need to know what the customer expects to see in the policy. Sometimes customers have different wants and limits and we have had our agent call and say, "how much work are you doing with this customer because this is going to cost $500.00 to add this requirement to your policy"
I also have the promoter add my company to their event policy as additional insured. Just another precaution.
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Your venture into insurance will be easier because you are a technical services only type entity. If you are a sole proprietor and have no employees, it further reduces cost. The big questions they will have are what do you do, how much is your income, do you make or build products, do you rent equipment and the general size of crowd and venue you will be at.
DO NOT try and find insurance online. Find an independent insurance agent and talk to them. They can generally be of more help and direct you in the most prudent direction. The online stuff always try and classify you as a DJ which is not going to work for you. Depending on income and scope of work ( gear and equipment rental and leasing ) and other factors, you should be seeing an insurance policy between $1k to $2k or more. This may or may not include workers comp? Based on my experience with this process and what you present, I would guess $1,500 for ins. and another $500 for WC per year. Right around that ballpark anyway.
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While i've never needed it in the past, times change and i now have several clients that are asking me to provide of Certificate of Insurance. I know the basics, but i'd welcome anyone's experiences regarding this.
To be clear, i'm not a gear provider. I'm just that guy they hire to show up and push the faders up and down. So, we're just looking for basic liability and worker's comp [unless i don't know as much as i think i know].
Thanks in advance.
My LLC uses Travelers through a local agent. $1M/$2M liabilty plus $100K personal property loss for around $50/month plus a $150 or so renewal payment each year. The right local agent is work his/her weight in gold.
Edit: Some states, such as mine (TN) offer an official WC exemption certificate for 1-man companies.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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Hi Brian and Jordan, this is a fairly common topic here so a quick search will likely yield the usual suspects. My company (LLC) is insured through Event Helper (https://www.theeventhelper.com/). The premium is reasonable and COIs are usually sent within an hour of submitting the request. While I've never had a claim I've been very happy so far. Hope this helps!
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I'll add a +1 to those who said find a good local agent.
I have an insurance agent in the family, and so can attest to the complexity of state-to-state variances in the laws and requirements. It's almost like hiring a specialized lawyer - finding someone with the specific knowledge ends up being worth every penny and saves you a bunch of time and stress.
Liability coverage is not something that you want to get 'sort of' right.
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Hi Brian and Jordan, this is a fairly common topic here so a quick search will likely yield the usual suspects. My company (LLC) is insured through Event Helper (https://www.theeventhelper.com/). The premium is reasonable and COIs are usually sent within an hour of submitting the request. While I've never had a claim I've been very happy so far. Hope this helps!
That's very helpful, thanks.
FWIW, I did try to do a search, but the keyword "insurance" yielded a LOT of unrelated returns i didn't want to sift through. So i got lazy. :)
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That's very helpful, thanks.
FWIW, I did try to do a search, but the keyword "insurance" yielded a LOT of unrelated returns i didn't want to sift through. So i got lazy. :)
No worries! For some reason the search feature on this website doesn’t work too well so I just use Google and add site:forums.prosoundweb.com after the terms I’m looking for. The results are much more relevant! Good luck!
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No worries! For some reason the search feature on this website doesn’t work too well so I just use Google and add site:forums.prosoundweb.com after the terms I’m looking for. The results are much more relevant! Good luck!
And that's the best advice of the thread. :)
Thanks!