Cover for your gear, wherever the work takes it.

Your gear is the business. The camera, the lenses, the lighting, the audio, the laptop you cut on. It is the most valuable thing you own, and it does not sit still. It lives in a bag, in a boot, on a train, on a beach, on someone else's set. Which is exactly where things get dropped, soaked, or lifted.

Lose it and you do not just lose the gear. You lose the shoot, the deadline, and the client who needed the files on Friday. So this is the cover most worth getting right, and the one most creators have wrong without knowing it.

Here is how equipment insurance actually works, in plain English.

The short answer

If you get paid for your work, your home contents insurance almost certainly does not cover your gear. The moment it earns money, most home policies treat it as business use and quietly stop applying. So the cover you actually want is one of two things:

• All Risks for the gear that travels with you.
• Business Contents for the gear that stays put, in a studio or office.

Most shooters need the first, and some need both. They are opt-in sections, so you pick what fits how you work and skip the rest. There is no single policy that bundles everything in by default.

The home insurance gap

This is the one that catches people out. You insured the camera on your home contents years ago, kept paying the premium, and assumed you were fine. Then you started getting paid for shoots, and without anyone telling you, that cover lapsed for the gear you use for work.

Most home policies exclude business use, or cap it so low it is meaningless for a real setup. So if your camera is stolen on a paid job, a home insurer can decline the claim outright. The fix is not a bigger home policy. It is cover built for working gear.

All Risks vs Business Contents

The difference is simple: where the gear is.

All Risks covers accidental loss, theft and damage to the gear you take off-site, and you set where it applies for each item you list: your premises only, or away from them across the United Kingdom or the European Union. This is the right home for anything that travels: cameras, lenses, lighting, audio, the editing laptop.

Business Contents covers the equipment, stock and contents at your premises, a studio, an office, a unit. If you shoot on location, you lead with All Risks. If you also hold gear or stock at a fixed base, you add Contents for that.

One thing to avoid: the small "tools" allowance some policies mention is built for a tradesperson's drill, not a fifteen-thousand-pound camera setup. Don't rely on it for production gear. Insure the real thing under All Risks.

What "all risks" actually covers, and the small print that matters

All Risks does what it says: it covers accidental loss or damage, not a short list of named perils. A lens that takes a knock, a rig that goes in the sea, a bag that vanishes from a location. Theft is covered too, subject to sensible security, so don't leave the gear on show in an unattended car and expect a clean claim.

Two things make the difference at claim time:

• List your gear honestly and insure it for what it costs to replace. Under-insure to save a few pounds and you get a short payout when it counts.
• It settles on a reinstatement basis, so the point is to put you back to work with the gear replaced, not to argue you down to scrap value.

Public liability, while you're at it

Insuring the gear protects you. Public Liability protects everyone else. The moment you shoot around the public or on someone else's property, there is a way to injure someone or damage something, and venues and councils will ask to see cover, usually at £1m or £2m, before they let you set up. It is a separate section you add, and most shooters working on location carry it.

So what do you actually need?

A typical shooter's stack looks like this:

• All Risks for the gear that travels. The core cover.
• Business Contents, if you also hold gear or stock at a studio or unit.
• Public Liability, the day a venue or client asks for proof, or you shoot around people.
• Cyber, if your footage, files and client work all live online and a breach would stop you dead.

You buy the ones that match how you actually work, and you skip the rest. If you want the wider picture for your trade, the photographers and videographers cover lays it out, and the content creator insurance guide covers the rest of the creator stack.

Pricing a kit list

Mostly two things: the replacement value of the gear you schedule, and how far from your premises each item needs to be covered. A body and two lenses insured for the United Kingdom is a different risk from a full kit that flies, and the price says so. Every charge is itemised before you pay: the premium, Insurance Premium Tax, the broker's policy fee and the payment processing charge.

If it goes missing on a shoot

The thing worth getting right now, while nothing has happened, is the schedule itself. List the gear honestly, value it at what replacing it costs this year rather than what you paid for it, and set the territory to where it actually goes. That is what decides whether a claim puts you back on the job or leaves you short. Cover is arranged with Kovrilo and underwritten by established insurers, and when you notify a loss, a claims concierge gets it to the specialist team appointed to handle that section, who take it from there. Price your kit list.