Musician Insurance Is A Given

Accidents happen

 If you're an independent musician there are several things that we reckon you should be doing from day one. We're not saying that you're stupid if you don't do these things but you'll definitely be missing a trick. You've probably already read the millions of articles out there teaching you 'online marketing essentials for musicians' and how to 'improve your bands SEO'. The fact that there are a million of the previously mentioned articles knocking about suggests that these things are in fact important and we agree that they are. There's not however as much info pertaining to the importance of  something as simple as insurance for your equipment, but don't let this lack of information lead you to believe that it's not important - if you've invested a lot of your hard earned cash into your gear, you need to make sure you have adequate cover for it. Music rights management specialist Sentric Music recently published this excellent blog post which shows the average cost of a bands equipment and what the band would have to do in order to re-coup their losses.

A lot of musicians rely on their household insurance to cover their gear but it's often a very murky area when it comes to what's covered and many people have been caught 'with their pants down' so to speak and left out of pocket. Household Insurance may not cover your equipment outside of the UK - European and Worldwide cover is available on most tailored musician insurance packages. If you travel abroad with your instruments you're most probably going to need a tailored insurance policy and should seek some advice.

Another problem in relying on household Insurance to cover your equipment is that there is often a payment limit per item, e.g. the maximum you can claim per item could be £1,000 - thus, you're snookered if you have anything costing more.  There may also be a limit on the amount of cover provided for those items that leave the house with you.  Household insurance may not cover the instruments whilst they are in an external venue such as a pub or on the road, especially if they are being used for commercial purposes - which makes gigging a bit of a pain! Hopefully we're giving you an idea of the questions you need to ask when deciding what kind of insurance you need.  If you're a gigging musician or band it's just as imprtant to understand public liability.

Also, if you've ever tried to get a quote for your music equipment over the phone, you've probably been really perplexed at the randomness of some of the questions asked by insurance companies. It doesn't seem necessary to know your age, marital status and underwear colour (if this is asked, you should be worried) however, all the questions - however silly they may seem - are required by law.  The nice people at YOUR Insurance offer a quote and buy online facility so you can buy your insurance at a time that suits you and hopefully avoid having to speak to anybody!

To save you a lot of headache, misfortune and money in the long run musician insurance is extremely useful.