Business & Liability
The business side of photography insurance — do you need an LLC, what liability coverage and certificates of insurance actually mean.
Two places to start: whether you need camera insurance without a registered business, and what the camera insurance included with a PPA membership actually pays for. Researching a policy rather than reading? Compare policies side by side on our home page.
"Are You Insured? Your Policy May Cover the Data Recovery." For Most Photographers, It Doesn't.
A DPReview editor lost a full day's shoot to a dead card. Eight days earlier a wedding photographer lost the couple's portraits the same way. Gear coverage insures the card, not the pictures, and the one program that names data recovery isn't insurance at all.
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State Farm Told Him $50,000 of Gear Made Him "Commercial." He Isn't Selling a Single Photo.
The trigger that pushed this hobbyist off personal-lines coverage was the value of his kit, not how he uses it. Two different things get you sent to business insurance, and only one of them is about running a business.
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He Wanted E&O Without Losing His Gear Policy. Most Insurers Don't Let You Do Both.
A wedding photographer found State Farm wouldn't sell him Errors & Omissions coverage at all. A videographer was told adding it meant switching his entire policy, at $2,000 a year. Here's why professional liability is so hard to buy on its own, and what it actually pays for.
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Her Harness Failed and a Borrowed Camera Rolled Into a Lake Mid-Shoot. There Was No Insurance to Call.
A camera strap failure sent a borrowed Sony A7 IV off a bridge and into a lake during a paid engagement session. Two commenters reflexively told her to file an insurance claim. She had none. Here's what that gap actually costs, and what would have closed it.
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Gear Insurance Covers Your Camera. It Doesn't Cover the Guest Who Trips Over Your Light Stand.
Once you start getting paid for photography, venues start asking for a Certificate of Insurance — and a camera policy alone can't produce one. Here's what general liability actually covers, what a COI is, and what it costs bundled with equipment insurance.
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You Don't Need an LLC to Insure Your Camera Gear (But It's Easy to Think You Do)
A hobbyist with $20k in gear — Canon R8, Leica M11, iPad Pro — hit a wall trying to insure it without a business name or address. Here's why that wall exists, and which providers don't require one.
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