Huge congratulations to all of the winners at yesterday’s Evening Standard Theatre Awards. It’s been another amazing year for UK stage productions and it was fantastic to see luminaries and legends such as Dame Maggie Smith, Andrew Scott and Sir Ian McKellen awarded for their performances during the 2019 awards ceremony.
This year presented by The Good Fight star Cush Jumbo at the London Coliseum, The Evening Standard Theatre Awards is now in its seventh decade, making it the UK’s oldest theatrical awards ceremony. While we haven’t been involved in the theatre industry quite as long as the Evening Standard, ERS has been proudly supporting the UK entertainment for several years.
In fact, we recently celebrated the third anniversary of our Sports & Entertainment product, which is specifically designed to support entertainment professionals let down by the mainstream motor insurance industry.
From behind-the-scenes to centre stage
Our Sports & Entertainment product not only covers the stars of the stage but also the plethora of backstage and behind-the-scenes roles so pivotal to the smooth running of the day-to-day industry.
As our business has grown, we’ve underwritten policies for actors, musicians, dancers, and comedians, as well as for stage managers, producers, ushers and box office staff. What binds these diverse roles together is that they all typically get a raw deal when trying to secure motor insurance via run-of-the-mill online insurance providers. Because they’re categorised as belonging to the entertainment sector, they’re automatically labelled ‘high risk’, irrespective of their job.
In contrast, we recognise that underwriting policies for these professionals needs to be far more reflective of each individual’s actual risk profile. This could be the difference between a performer making short journeys every day to a theatre with dedicated staff parking, versus a member of a touring company relying on their vehicle to transport them around the UK and beyond.
Hence, we assign skilled underwriters to deep-dive into each client’s requirements, from the nature of their role and their public profile to how and where their vehicle is being used and stored, allowing us to offer the right type of cover for each role/profession at the right price.
Growing our appetite – and our team
We’ve steadily expanded our team of experts to ensure brokers are always able to access the specialist expertise they require, from marketing and underwriting to renewals and claims.
We pride ourselves on our ability to understand the client needs of our brokers, for example:
- Catering for extremely time-poor clients by turning around new quotes in 2-4 hours;
- The desire for policies to include professionals’ personal effects;
- Providing appropriate courtesy cars (for example, if we’re insuring a Prestige vehicle)
We’ve even established a dedicated claims team, with expert handlers who will go that extra mile in solving each claim – vital given that many of these professionals simply cannot fulfil their touring commitments without a vehicle in full working order.
An eye to the future
In the world of entertainment, we always advise brokers to get in early and seek out relationships with tomorrow’s brightest talent as they purchase their first vehicles, forming lucrative partnerships that will grow in tandem with their industry profiles over the years to come. To that end, it’s well worth checking the recent UK Entertainment Awards, which has been set up specifically to showcase emerging young talent and support entertainers as yet overlooked by the mainstream – something that the awards have in common with ourselves!
The UK entertainment sector is burgeoning right now, making it the perfect time for us to up our risk appetite, so if you’re a broker that would like to work with us or learn more about our Sports & Entertainment product, please contact our team on prestige@ERS.com | 0333 241 2445
