Protest disruption can leave film and TV productions facing delays, extra costs and uncertainty over cover. Nichola Street explains how brokers and insurance providers can help clients prepare and resolve claims when filming stops.
By Nichola Street, Senior Adjuster, Spotlite Claims
Recent unrest in France showed how quickly conditions can change for TV and film production teams using city locations as a backdrop. Protests over the cost of living turned into riots in several cities, and curfews were imposed in parts of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Although the immediate impact on international productions was limited, security advisers told crews to avoid Paris and Marseille, and producers expected the tension to last for weeks.
Productions are no longer invisible visitors
Productions bring jobs and spending, but demand for accommodation and local resources can put crews at the centre of wider concerns about housing, overtourism and environmental impact. In June 2025, coordinated anti-tourism protests across Barcelona, Palma, Ibiza, the Canary Islands, Venice and Lisbon highlighted these pressures—and the tensions they can create between residents and visiting production teams.
Authorities can also interrupt filming. After the 2015 Paris attacks, the city temporarily banned outdoor action scenes, putting at least one French production on hold.
Closer to home, London has seen ongoing protest activity, with large marches regularly requiring thousands of police officers. The Metropolitan Police has described the period since October 2023 as the “greatest period of sustained pressure since the Olympics in 2012.”
Social media then amplifies the disruption. Even a small protest can draw international attention, prompt boycott calls and raise concerns among investors or distributors. That pressure can turn a short filming delay into a decision to relocate or abandon the location.
How protest disruption plays out as a claim
Unlike a storm or an equipment failure, protest disruption is often partial, intermittent and open to interpretation. That is where disputes arise, and why loss adjusters focus on three questions.
The first is: what actually stopped filming? Physical damage, curfews, police closures, withdrawn location permission and a producer’s safety decision may trigger different policy responses. Loss adjusters need to establish which applies and check the relevant exclusions and limits, including distinctions between riot, strike, civil commotion, political violence and terrorism cover.
The second is: was the protest the real cause of the loss? Loss adjusters will request contemporaneous records such as the original shooting schedule and any documented changes so protest-related delays can be distinguished from existing schedule slippage or unrelated location problems.
The third is: did the production act reasonably to reduce the loss? Policies generally expect the insured to mitigate, for example by moving to a standby location or reshuffling the schedule. Early discussions with insurance providers and adjusters can help productions weigh alternatives and understand whether associated costs may be recoverable, without assuming every mitigation expense is covered.
Preparing for disruption
For brokers and insurance providers working with TV and film productions, social and political sentiment is becoming as important to location-risk assessments as logistics, security and weather. Increasingly, we’re seeing cover extended to protect production teams for civil unrest, political violence, terrorism and industrial action. The expectation is that if protests threaten filming, there are standby locations and documented contingency plans, with the policy covering the cost of putting those plans into action.
Claims are resolved fastest when the broker or insurance provider is told about protest disruption on the day it happens, so evidence requirements can be agreed straight away. These may include daily logs, photographs, video, police notices and correspondence with location owners and authorities. We always advise production teams to record mitigation costs separately from normal production spending and to discuss major relocation or abandonment decisions before committing expenditure, so the production understands its options and any uncertainty over cover.
After the event
Once the immediate concerns over the shooting schedule have been resolved, loss adjusting teams will review records provided by production teams on protest-related delays, including evidence of extra expense incurred. Not every disruption will be insured. Boycotts and social media backlash are generally harder to cover than physical or access-related losses, which makes prevention and good relationships with local communities all the more important.
Turning preparation into practical support
The next production shutdown may not appear in the weather forecast. It may already be trending on social media. Production teams that prepare for protest risk, backed by practical claims support from the insurance market, will be in a far stronger position. Clear discussions about cover, realistic contingency plans and well-documented losses can help get filming back on track.
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