Personal liability insurance

LynseyAtkins

Hi all,
I am getting married in my local church and the vicar has insisted our videographer needs public liability insurance up to £2m. Our videographer is only a friend who is not in the photography business, therefore I presume he actually needs personal liability insurance instead?
I just don't know how to get this?
Any help would be hugely appreciated
Thanks

Aretnap

If he has home/contents insurance that will provide him with liability cover providing it's something he's doing as a hobby, or as a favour to a friend, rather than in a business capacity.

LynseyAtkins

Thank you. Will my home insurance not cover it?

EdGasketTheSecond

I would have thought the house insurance public liability is strictly limited to incidents involving the house e.g. a tile falling on the postman, not activities unconnected with owning the property; especially those that might earn a fee and could be construed as business use.

elsien

Is he charging you for it?

This is not a recommendation, but is it worth seeing what sort of quotes he gets through something like this?
http://www.liabilityguard.co.uk/homephoto.asp

rach_k

I had a similar situation and used https://www.ripeinsurance.co.uk/ to get cover for the photographer. I have no idea if it's the cheapest or best but it was quick and provided the necessary cover.

Aretnap

LynseyAtkins wrote: »

Thank you. Will my home insurance not cover it?

No. Your insurance covers your own liabilities - and those of your immediate family who live with you. It doesn't cover the liabilities of friends and acquaintances, even if they are doing you a favour.

Aretnap

EdGasketTheSecond wrote: »

I would have thought the house insurance public liability is strictly limited to incidents involving the house e.g. a tile falling on the postman, not activities unconnected with owning the property; especially those that might earn a fee and could be construed as business use.

Buildings insurance generally comes with occupiers liability cover, which covers liabilities relating to the property itself. Contents insurance comes with much broader personal liability insurance, which covers any liabilities arising out of your activities in or out of the home, with some specific exceptions. The two products are frequently bundled together into a single product called buildings and contents insurance, commonly known as home insurance.

As far as the personal liability section goes, the main exceptions are generally

(1) liabilities arising out of the use of a motor vehicle (for that you need car insurance)
(2) contractual liabilities (no, you can't claim for your gas bill on your home insurance) and
(3) liabilities arising out of your employment or business

Assuming the OP's friend is not doing the videography on a business basis then none of the above apply, and if he carelessly kills someone with his video camera or burns the church down (no, I'm not sure how he'd do those things either) he would be covered by his home insurance. "Could be construed as..." is meaningless - either he is getting paid for the job or he isn't

bland

I had this when I rented a hall for a party. All family and friends attending but had a friend taking photos/videos for me. They were not a professional or a business but had decent photography equipment and volunteered their services so I accepted.


The hall owner said they needed insurance so I paid for them to get a public liability insurance policy. It was only about £40 for the year so I paid it for them in case this came up again and as a thank you for their help.I'm pretty sure they didn't need it as can't see the difference between what they were doing and another person at the party getting their camera out and taking a picture/video for themselves. Kept the hall owner happy and my photographer friend thinks the insurance may come in handy if they decide to do the same again in the future.