With growing attacks on film sets, producers rush for insurance cover

In the film industry creativity comes at a price. The rising cost of insurance cover is among the latest.

With sporadic incidents of violence being witnessed on the sets of high-profile movies and growing risks attached to the realistic action sequences, the film industry in India is increasingly opting for insurance cover.

The size of the Indian film industry, including Bollywood and regional productions, is estimated at around ₹14,200 crore, with annual production of about 1,500-2,000 movies. While the industry is growing at a sluggish pace of 3 per cent, insurance policies for movies have grown by double-digits in 2016-17.

Insiders maintain that since the time of popular Hindi period movie Mughal-E-Azam (1960) to the upcoming Sanjay Leela Bhansali production Padmavati , Hindi cinema has faced financial losses arising from natural disasters, accidents and public outrage over the contents of a movie.

Noted director-producer Mahesh Bhatt highlighted the need for insurance as well as State monitoring and control to make it conducive for film-makers to produce films. “Earlier, we used to have insurance against natural disasters. But the environment today has become very hostile. Attacks on sets and vandalism are man-made losses. Life-long investments and hard work of people are put in jeopardy.”

“Once the insurance guys get a whiff of some mischief brewing around a movie, they set a limit for offering cover. This is something for which the law and order system has to be accountable. We can’t find a solution by putting it on the insurance companies to pay for the losses,” Bhatt told BusinessLine .

According to insurance companies, cover for movie production has gained traction even among small-budget producers and makers of regional cinema.

“Producers, both big and small, face unique circumstances, varying from damage or theft of expensive equipment to actors falling ill to vandalism on the sets by miscreants. An insurance policy covers all the risks associated with the movie in its production stage,” said Sasikumar Adidamu, Chief Technical Officer, Non-Motor, Bajaj Allianz GIC, which started film insurance with the Aamir Khan-starrer Taare Zameen Par (2007).

Bajaj Allianz has so far insured over 100 regional and Hindi movies. “Over the past year, there has been an uptake in the number of film insurance policies. Bajaj Allianz GIC saw 10-12 per cent growth in 2016-17 over last year in the number of policies,” said Adidamu.

Film insurance policies are usually packaged policies offering a range of covers — for cast, equipment, props, sets, wardrobes, film tapes and negatives, against incidents such as fire, natural disasters, accidents, riots and strikes, among others.

New generation film maker Abhishek Jain of Cineman Productions, which makes Gujarati films, underlined some basic challenges involved in availing insurance for films. “It is a challenge to decide the terms of insurance. This is an uncertain industry and the incidents are unpredictable and unique.”

According to Jain, regional cinema faces greater risk of financial loss because unlike Hindi cinema, which gets bank finance, regional cinema is mostly self-financed. “People put in their own money. Also, the nature of Gujarati films is such that it does not require sets. They are mostly shot on real locations. So, insurance is not always viable for such movies,” said Jain.

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