We offer professional indemnity insurance at two different tiers
- Tier 1 – Coverage up to £50,000 (£250 excess) £21.20*
- Tier 2 – Coverage up to £100,000 (£250 excess) £31.80*
*prices are inclusive of insurance premium tax
About professional indemnity insurance
Professional indemnity insurance is designed to protect you from claims arising due to copyright or intellectual property infringement.
If you monetise your music through publishing, sync deals for advertising, film, TV or video games then it will usually be a contractual requirement to indemnify the third party against such claims. This indemnification can be covered through a professional indemnity policy.
For songwriters who are not bound by a contractual requirement, then this type of policy can provide you peace of mind that any mistake or oversight in your work will be covered should a third party bring a claim against you.
It will also respond if there is a breach of contract, data or privacy breach and claims of libel or slander.
The legal costs and damages awarded from a claim, can be substantially higher than the value of the contract that is agreed for a composition or catalogue. This is because the damages are based on the financial loss of the third party and could also include historical or future royalties.
How to get professional indemnity insurance
- You first need to be eligible by meeting the requirements in the statement of fact. You can download the statement of fact on the right-hand side of this page.
- Fill out the form.
- Email membership@ivorsacademy.com with the statement of fact attached, and with the subject header The Ivors Academy PI, [Tier 1/2], [full name], [membership number].
- Allow for 2 – 5 working days for the statement of fact to be reviewed by our insurance partners, Howden Music.
- If you meet the requirements, a member of the team will send through a payment link.
- We will send you a link to pay, then a member of the team will send through your proof of insurance certificate.
Claims examples
A music producer was engaged to produce a track for an advert and paid £5,000 in total. Six months after the advert first aired, they received a letter from a lawyer claiming the track infringed copyright of another artist’s previously released track.
The insurance paid for legal defence costs and the opinion of a musicologist. The claim was refuted and the producer was cleared. If the producer had lost, the policy would have paid for the damages as well as the legal costs – up to the sum insured on the policy.
Ed Sheeran and Matt Cardle
This is a well-publicised legal battle and it was ruled: “The chorus sections of Amazing and the infringing Photograph share 39 identical notes – meaning the notes are identical in pitch, rhythmic duration, and placement in the measure”. This case was settled in April 2017 at £16m.
Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and Marvin Gaye
Another well-publicised case is where the composers of “Blurred Lines” were required to pay $7.2m. Although this was reduced on appeal, the Marvin Gaye estate now receives 50% of publishing and songwriting revenues from the song.
