Scott Taylor, President of Taylor & Taylor, and a member of the AICP National Board of Directors, has compiled some guidance on insurance, which can be found here.

With the wildfires in California burning out of control, production companies are looking for some guidance on how to proceed with jobs that are shooting today, supposed to shoot tomorrow and upcoming jobs in the affected areas.

Much like in March of 2020 with the Covid outbreak, the best approach to cancelling or postponing a job:

1. where there is still a valid film permit in place

2. you are shooting on private property which has not been damaged by the fire, or which does not require a film permit

is to have the client make the decision to cancel or postpone the job and look to the cancellation/force majeure section of your production contract as respects overages. Do not cancel or postpone the job without seeking legal counsel and prior approval from the client. 

If the job is shooting today and your film permit is pulled by a civil authority, or your crew is evacuated by law enforcement you most likely will have a civil authority claim for the production overage subject to the civil authority sublimit and deductible. Some policies might require the cause giving rise to the civil authority claim to occur within a specified number of miles of your location, but that is the exception rather than the general rule.

If the job is shooting tomorrow or in the future and your company has a valid film permit, the best approach is probably to mitigate the costs by taking the following preventative action versus doing nothing and waiting to have your film permit pulled or to be evacuated by law enforcement.

1. moving the job to an alternate location or

2. delaying the start of production by a number of days.

All insurance policies contain a Due Diligence clause that requires the policyholder to use due diligence to diminish a loss or circumstances that may give rise to a loss or damage or risk losing coverage for that claim.

Using March of 2020 and other wildfire events as a guiding principle, the following occurrences did not typically trigger insurance coverage for production overages or abandonment:

1. air quality;

2. people feeling it was not safe to go to work;

3. people afraid to travel on the roads;

4. businesses voluntarily deciding to shutdown.

These are general guidelines and each claim or potential claim is fact specific and other sections of the production package policy could afford coverage.