I talked to an insurance broker yesterday and learned a couple of interesting (OK, that’s an exaggeration — useful, then) things pertaining to the movie:
The minimum cost to getting the $2M insurance required by the city to obtain a permit is $1300. So, we won’t be getting any permits for our shoots on public laneways. However, when I talked to the lady at the city about shooting guerrilla-style, she said that although it is possible we could be fined we will probably just be moved along.
E&O insurance will require releases for the mention of any brand name or slogan. I thought we might be able to get away with it if we didn’t show the logos, but apparently not without paying much higher premiums. We might be defended by an argument of satire in the court, but the insurance company will charge us for the risk. Since it’s mostly in Tate’s spammer section, Tate and I discussed it and decided to shoot a real brand version and a fake brand version (ie. TimBucks instead of Starbucks) of the affected scenes just to give us some options.
E&O insurance will require releases even for exterior shot of distinctive buildings. I had previously assumed we could shoot the outsides of buildings with impunity, but apparently not. But if it’s enough of a background element — similar to a big enough crowd of people, for instance — it’s not a problem.