{"id":805179,"date":"2020-03-12T14:18:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T20:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=965288"},"modified":"2020-03-12T14:18:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T20:18:27","slug":"does-music-touring-insurance-cover-coronavirus-its-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/does-music-touring-insurance-cover-coronavirus-its-complicated\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Music Touring Insurance Cover Coronavirus? It\u2019s Complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Coachella is on hold for six months<\/a>. Concert giants Live Nation and AEG are pausing all tours<\/a>. As festivals, shows, and other music events flounder<\/a> due to the global coronavirus<\/a> outbreak, many in the music business are scrambling for answers from tour insurance \u2014 only to find that insurers don\u2019t want to be on the hook for payouts, either.<\/p>\n

The Covid-19 outbreak, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on Wednesday, is not being covered by most major music insurance companies, according to agencies, attorneys, and artist business managers contacted by Rolling Stone<\/em>. Of the two types of music insurance available \u2014 promoters\u2019 insurance and artists\u2019 insurance \u2014 the former typically does not include pandemics in the first place, and the latter is also usually too restrictive to cover disease-related scheduling changes that don\u2019t come from an artist\u2019s personal health issues, sources say. To stem any doubt, many insurers also wrote a specific coronavirus exclusion into new policies as the coronavirus outbreak began to spread globally earlier this year.<\/p>\n

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\u201cInsurance companies are not in the business of paying insurance. There is very little protection available to artists from insurance companies for a pandemic.\u201d \u2014 Howard King, entertainment attorney<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cInsurance companies are not in the business of paying insurance,\u201d Howard King, managing partner of entertainment-focused law firm King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano, tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cThere is very little protection available to artists from insurance companies for a pandemic, unless the artist themselves have contracted the disease and can\u2019t perform. And that<\/em> is only if the policy was bought before January. Since January, new insurance contracts have not covered coronavirus.\u201d Kevin Kennedy, an industry analyst at research firm IBISWorld, confirms that \u201cinfectious disease insurance among event hosts is uncommon\u201d in the first place.<\/p>\n

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Essentially: Artists canceling tours are on the hook for any losses, and promoters canceling tours are likely on the hook for their losses. Postponement instead of cancellation may allow some wiggle room on the expense sheet, one booking agency source tells Rolling Stone<\/em>, since it means an artist or promoter likely does not have to return all ticket fees as refunds in one go and stands a chance of recouping profits on a later tour.<\/p>\n

Rolling Stone<\/i> obtained and reviewed a 2020 musician tour contract with one major insurance company, which stipulates that the insurance does not cover any losses from communicable diseases unless an infection is directly the cause of the cancelation or a government authority orders the venue to close \u2014 but then further stipulates that \u201cnotwithstanding the above, this insurance excludes any loss directly or indirectly arising out of, contributed by, or resulting from Coronavirus (2019-nCoV \/ Covid-19) or any mutation or variation thereof and\/or threat (whether actual or perceived) or fear thereof.\u201d The insurer did not respond to request for comment.<\/p>\n

While some pre-January insurance policies still might pay out some sums, only artists and promoters of a certain stature are able to purchase insurance in the first place. SXSW, the major tech-music festival in Austin that was forced to cancel last week, reportedly does not even have insurance<\/a> and is reeling from major losses at the moment. \u201cMost major artists buy tour cancellation insurance, but it\u2019s very expensive. Insurance can be 3 to 4 percent of the budget, so a million-dollar policy might be $30,000,\u201d King says. \u201cBut even if you buy it now \u2014 it won\u2019t cover coronavirus. My advice to artists is to just reschedule as quickly as they can right now and hopefully recoup some losses and still make a profit with the rescheduled show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura Jane Grace, singer and guitarist of Against Me!, wrote on Twitter<\/a> last week that her insurance company had updated their policies to not cover coronavirus-caused cancellations. The reason so many tours are being canceled right now before they begin is \u201cnot because people are sitting down concerned about the risks of getting that many people together in a closed space, but because the insurance companies are pulling out,\u201d she tells Rolling Stone, <\/em>adding that she thinks many groups would be attempting to proceed with tours out of duty to their fans if they were financially protected. \u201c[Artists] realizing, \u2018Oh, fuck, if we go on the road and then have to cancel, it\u2019s just going to screw us.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Grace \u2014 who ended up turning down an insurance policy she was considering because it ultimately seemed of little use \u2014 says she feels \u201csheer frustration\u201d that she tried to cover her bases and couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

When it comes to trying to buy new insurance policies, artists and promoters are in the same boat. \u201cCommunicable disease coverage can be included, but by late January a separate and specific exclusion for Coronavirus has been added to policies across the board,\u201d says Cameron Smith, senior vice president for entertainment industry solutions at insurance provider HUB International. \u201cSo, if a festival or event purchased their cancellation coverage prior to that time, they may have limited coverage, but absolutely no one is covering coronavirus on newly bound policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Cook, bassist of instrumental group Russian Circles, says his band \u2014 which just had to scrap a six-week European tour the other day, hours before he was meant to step on the plane to Belgium \u2014 has never purchased tour cancellation insurance but may look into it for future tours. \u201cWe are really living tour to tour in terms of subsisting financially,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are fortunate enough to make a living from touring, but not fortunate enough that we have deep savings and money squirreled away for hardships. The coronavirus right now is a calamity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Coachella is on hold for six months. Concert giants Live Nation and AEG are pausing all tours. As festivals, shows, and other music events flounder due to the global coronavirus outbreak, many in the music business are scrambling for answers from tour insurance \u2014 only to find that insurers don\u2019t want to be on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-805179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 09:26:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}