While much of Canada’s commercial lines market is easing into a softening cycle, entertainment insurance is bucking the trend. Rates for film and television production coverage have plateaued, but not declined – at least not yet.
According to Damian Schleifer (pictured), executive vice president at Front Row Insurance Brokers, the market remains stable in 2025 after several years of steady inflationary increases.
However, a slowdown in production volumes could prompt increased competition among insurers for fewer projects – a dynamic that may usher in a softer market by late 2025 or early 2026, Schleifer said.
For now, the entertainment insurance space remains stable, with plenty of capacity in the market. But Schleifer cautioned that this stability could shift quickly depending on supply-and-demand dynamics.
Schleifer pointed out that 2025 has been uneven so far in terms of activity, with certain months showing stronger output than others. If production levels remain flat or decline, insurers may begin competing more aggressively for fewer opportunities – which could lead to modest price reductions.
“If that demand is fairly weak, or there isn't as much activity, we could see more competition between insurers for a smaller pie,” he told Insurance Business.
Schleifer believes the likelihood of market hardening is low, noting that broad rate hikes are unlikely under current conditions. While isolated increases may occur, they would typically be tied to specific risk factors within a client’s business rather than a market-wide trend.
“It'd be very unusual to see a rate increase. There would need to be something problematic with a client's business for an insurer to try and increase rates,” he said.
When it comes to entertainment insurance, the growing conversation around US tariffs and geopolitical shifts is causing unease, but its practical implications remain murky.
According to Schleifer, the film and television sector differs from other industries in one crucial way: it doesn’t produce a physical product. Instead, it creates intangible content that is distributed and consumed globally. This makes the question of how tariffs might apply to productions a difficult one to answer.
“How a product moves across borders is a little unusual,” Schleifer said, adding that it’s an international industry by nature. Actors, crews, and production teams come from all over the world, and big-budget productions often film in multiple countries – so figuring out whether a project is fully American, Canadian, or international is extremely complicated.
Rather than triggering direct pricing changes or insurance disruptions, tariff discussions are acting indirectly by introducing uncertainty. That uncertainty, Schleifer warned, can dampen production activity, which in turn affects insurance demand. The bottom line, he said, is that most talks about tariffs and their impact on the entertainment industry are “academic” in nature.
“No one is quite sure how it would work,” he said.
While external factors like tariffs and market cycles may shape the broader environment, Schleifer emphasized that production companies still have a degree of control – especially when it comes to securing favorable insurance terms.
In entertainment insurance, best practices and strong operational discipline continue to be the clearest path to better coverage and lower costs. Schleifer noted that while nothing fundamentally new has emerged in terms of underwriting expectations, the fundamentals remain just as important as ever.
“There needs to be a balance between an artistic vision and a desire to do something that's creative, unique and entertaining on one side and strong business practices on another,” he said.
Insurers look for signs that a production company understands its operational risk and has processes in place to mitigate it. That includes managing tight schedules responsibly, avoiding rushed transitions between locations, ensuring safe setups and takedowns, and minimizing strain on cast and crew.
Schleifer said that balancing profitability with creative ambition isn’t easy, especially when managing operational risks at the same time. But over time, many production companies develop the ability to navigate both – building sustainable business practices while still pushing creative boundaries.
“A lot of companies are very good at this. It's often new and emerging producers that need to figure out how to wear two hats,” he said.
