E&O Insurance for Film: Who Is Insured.

E&O Insurance for Film

You arrive home after your screening of your documentary at a well known film festival. The film was well received. You feel great! Your hard work and investment for the last five years has paid off. Your distributor is happy. But even more than that you told your  important story and exposed the truth about a difficult subject.

There is a knock at your door and a courier presents you with a registered letter. You sign and open the package and see that you, your company, your wife, your financial partner and your cameraman have been sued for libel and slander by a large, powerful company. Fear strikes! Your wife? Your investor? Your cameraman? Why would they name them on the suit?

Your mind eases when you remember that your attorney was careful to vet the production for libel and slander issues. You remember not liking the process because some great ideas and footage had to be scrapped during editing. You are glad that you engaged a specialized clearance attorney familiar with “fair use/dealing” issues.

And…you purchased an E&O policy for your company from a specialized documentary insurance broker. Wow! You catch your breath. Similar scenarios to this have been played out many times for many documentarians.

But am I personally protected under the policy? Is my wife, investor and cameraman protected? Or will those legal costs have to be borne separate from that of the company’s policy?

What should I do?

The first thing you should do is notify your insurance broker and forward the legal letter you received.

Under most normal situations: you, your company, your wife, the investor and the cameraman would all be protected under the policy. You will also be provided with an expert claims adjuster and a lawyer paid by the E&O insurance company to defend your production through a settlement and even a court case, if necessary.

To obtain a preliminary E&O quote, please Click Here. You will be requested to fill out an application and a quote will be given to you in most cases within one business day.

Note: this is an illustration only. For a detailed outline of the E&O coverage, contact us and we will send you a sample policy wording. In the event of a coverage conflict given the advice above, the policy wording would prevail.