Beazley designs transmission cover for live virtual events

Specialist insurer  Beazley has launched a contingency policy designed to cover event organisers if a transmission failure disrupts or cancels a virtual event.

With social distancing rules in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19, many major events have been either cancelled, postponed or moved online.

Beazley’s virtual events transmission policy will cover first-party losses including organisational costs, expenses, or gross revenue from advertising and ticket sales, if an event is cancelled due to transmission failure.

The cover will be available on a global basis and offers limits of up to $10 million.

Mark Symons, contingency underwriter at Beazley, said: “For a long time, many events, from business conferences through to music festivals, have had an online element, which has been covered by endorsement to an event insurance policy. However, as a result of the coronavirus we are seeing far more events either being reorganised or created from scratch for purely virtual audiences.

"Even with lockdown easing, we expect this to continue both in business and leisure as people continue to avoid unnecessary crowds. These events are completely reliant on the technology working and a failure can be financially crippling, which means having robust insurance in place is a must. Beazley’s virtual events transmission policy is designed to provide simple and clear cover tailored for the risks involved with hosting virtual events.”