Event cancellation insurance quotes from licensed Australian brokers

What event cancellation covers

The policy generally responds to your irrecoverable costs and, where you are running the event commercially, to lost revenue or profit. The trigger has to be a cause outside your control, and the list of accepted causes is where policies differ.

• Cancellation, abandonment, postponement or curtailment of the event
• Adverse weather, usually as a specified extension rather than automatically
• Non appearance of a key speaker, performer or participant
• Damage to or unavailability of the venue
• Failure of essential utilities or transport disruption on some wordings
• Additional costs incurred to avoid cancelling, such as rescheduling expenses

Weather is usually an extension, not a given

Most cancellation policies do not include adverse weather as standard, and where they do it is defined tightly. Cover may require the weather to make the venue physically unusable or to trigger an official warning, rather than simply making the day unpleasant. For outdoor events the weather extension is often the entire reason for buying the policy, so read the definition closely and check what evidence the insurer requires. Rainfall based parametric products also exist for some events.

Liability is a separate policy

Cancellation cover is about money, not about people. If a guest is injured at your event, or a marquee causes damage to the venue, that is public liability. Most venues and councils require evidence of liability cover as a condition of the booking, often at ten or twenty million dollars, and they will usually want to be noted on the policy. Organisers frequently need both policies, and they are usually arranged together.

Timing and what underwriters ask

Arrange cover as soon as you start committing non refundable money. Insurers will not write cover for a cause that is already foreseeable, so a policy taken out when the cyclone is already named is too late. Expect questions about the event type, attendance, venue, the budget and which costs are irrecoverable, whether the event has run before, and what contingency plans exist. Communicable disease and pandemic related cancellation is broadly excluded across the market.