004 Exceptional Risk Advisors’ Frank Zuccarello on insuring top talent and tour advances

Last year the music company Concord borrowed nearly $1.8bn against songs that already exist and already earn. A promoter can now hand a new artist anything from a couple of hundred thousand dollars to $50m before a single tour date is booked. The first is priced on a track record. The second rests on one person staying well.

Frank Zuccarello is managing partner of Exceptional Risk Advisors, a New Jersey coverholder that writes life, disability and contingency cover for Lloyd’s of London when ordinary insurers won’t. His clients are performers, athletes and the people who lend to them. He explains how he prices a risk with no history: he insures the contract, so the policy pays as long as one person stays well. That is why a tour advance with no dates can be covered and a pandemic still can’t. He also covers storm-postponed shows, ageing headliners and disgrace cover.