I used to be a photographer. Mostly weddings, but I also shot some commercial work. All of it carried a degree of risk, but in particular I had lots of fears when photographing weddings. My CF card failing, turning up to the wrong venue… and losing important client photos.
Since moving into the world of insurance I’ve witnessed my fears come true for other photographers.
We’ve had claims due to failed CF cards and unhappy clients. Most recently we helped a photographer whose failed hard drive saw the loss of important client work.
There’s always the concern loss of client work could lead to claims from unhappy clients. This would be costly in terms of compensation and legal fees and would likely trigger the professional indemnity policy.
But what can we do to prevent it from getting to that point? Recover the data from the failed hard drive…
The photographer took the hard drive to a recovery company, but they couldn’t salvage any data. They recommended another recovery company, but this came with a warning of the high price they’d charge to attempt to recover the data.
Fortunately, this photographer had insurance arranged via With Jack.
If you have contents insurance there’s a ‘Reconstitution of electronic and non electronic data’ clause.
This covers the cost of “reconstituting the data that Your Organisation needs to continue the delivery of its Professional Services if Your Organisation’s business records and electronic and non electronic data have been lost or distorted as a direct result of Property Damage”.
The recovery company deemed the hard drive to be damaged (it was scratched internally), and the insurer covered the cost of attempting to recover the data. The final cost was over £5000.
It’s important to note that contents insurance doesn’t cover wear and tear. If the hard drive had failed due to natural wear and tear the recovery costs wouldn’t have been covered. You can mitigate this risk by ensuring:
- you have multiple back-ups
- you’re replacing older equipment with new, more reliable equipement
- you keep incremental on-site back-ups using tools like Time Machine or multi-cloud apps like Rackspace, Backblaze or Arq
There isn’t much we can do about turning up to the wrong venue, but we can help when equipment gets damaged and fails.
There is a chance the data won’t be able to be saved, but at least the financial element is taken care of so that a recovery attempt can be made. This means the photographer can get on with what they do best.
Be a confident freelancer. Get a quote with Jack.
