What’s New: In Brief (April 24, 2008)

Chubb Insurance Company of Canada has launched a policy for film producers that insures certain losses straight through post-production.
Typically such policies are restricted to covering losses that occur during the “principal photography” period only.
Chubb unveiled its “Film Producers Risk Policy” at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. The coverage is designed to address the enormous advances in filmmaking over the past decade, since the industry has moved from analogue to digital technology, said Ellen J. Moore, president and CEO of Chubb Insurance Company of Canada.
A 20-minute video presentation outlined the additional losses the new policy insures. They include:
loss or damage to any medium or device used to record or store sounds or images;
damage to property used in the production;
mechanical breakdown of equipment, animatronics, boats, aircraft, etc.; and
seizure or quarantine of property by government or military authority.
Policy enhancements also include:
cast insurance without age or childhood disease exclusions;
a blanket limit for undeclared cast or crew members; and
insurance for damage to media from X-rays, magnetic fields or temperature extremes.

Given an expanding and more litigious society, food and drink proprietors must ensure their businesses have adequate public liability coverage, warns Lloyd’s of London.
In a recent report available online, Lloyd’s points to a United Kingdom case last month in which an 11-month-old baby was badly burned and scarred for life after a hot drink was knocked over her at a fast food restaurant.
“A food and drink extension can be added to a public liability exposure which would not only cover the spilling of hot drinks in restaurants and coffee places but would also protect offices and any establishment with in-house catering,” the Lloyd’s statement says.
With social and medical inflation, it is recommended that companies should not have less than a Cdn$10 million limit, it adds.