There’s been a high demand for terrorism insurance in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre — with artists from all music genres reportedly looking to invest in policies for their concerts. “Now more than ever they are targets,” explained Steves Rodriguez, business manager for the all-girl pop group, Fifth Harmony. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter this week, he and other managers described how musicians were taking out terrorism insurance policies now — more than ever before — following the deadly mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest festival on Oct. 1. “Not everybody believes it’s necessary,” said business manager Bill Tannenbaum, who specializes in representing touring artists. “I’m pretty vocal about taking it with my clients, and luckily we had it with Ariana Grande.” The “Into You” singer was forced to cancel multiple stops on her world tour back in May after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Manchester Arena where she was performing. Twenty-two people were killed in the attack and hundreds more injured. The incident, coupled with the Vegas massacre and similar terror strikes — such as the Bataclan nightclub in Paris during an Eagles of Death Metal concert — has ultimately prompted artists to buy the insurance policies, which up until now, have been viewed by many as being too expensive. “It’s usually a battle with the artist to buy it,” said Dina LaPolt, lawyer for singers Britney Spears and Steven Tyler. “If you get paid a million dollars, all of your tour costs come out of that million,” she said. “So every penny counts.” While standard nonperformance insurance policies typically cost about 2 percent of the artist’s guarantee — and pay a claim of around 80 percent of appearance fees if a concert is canceled — a political violence and terrorism policy will usually run them an extra half-percent more, THR reports. Once a musician purchases the PVT insurance, they will be able to obtain their claim in the event that an unexpected crisis arises, or if there’s even the threat of an attack. “The way [policies had] been written previously is, the threat had to be related to the venue,” explained John Tomlinson, head of the world’s largest privately owned, independent insurance brokerage firm, Lockton Companies. “We have expanded that language to include threats made to bandmembers.” In addition, terrorism insurance policies may also cover a concert or show that is affected by an attack or threat that takes place around the same time or within a 50-mile radius of the venue. “If it’s a big tour and you’re a high-profile artist and you gather tens of thousands of people per show, you have to have it,” LaPolt said. “Orange Is the New Black” creator Jenji Kohan, who recently took out a terror policy on her office building, added: “You’re always going to do something that someone doesn’t like…And you don’t know how crazy that someone is going to be.”
An increasing number of musicians and performers are looking to purchase terrorism insurance coverage following disruption of popular concerts by recent attacks. Such policies would cover artists in the event of terror-linked cancellations. Bloodshed at concerts in Las Vegas, Paris and Manchester have prompted more musicians to mull policies they may have considered too expensive in the past.