Are you covered if you can't work? EP #157 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. Dan Lanney here, host of the how to Scale a video business podcast with this week's Shorty.

It was my birthday last week and had a few days off, which was amazing. Saw some wonderful friends over the weekend, went to a pottery class, had a lovely dinner and spent Sunday sort of recovering. But I've just spent the last couple of hours on the phone to insurance companies to sort out some income protection insurance and some other life insurance that I was looking to update. And it got me thinking about something I really wanted to share with you today, which I think is really important.

So, back in 2001, I had just gone through freelance as a cameraman in London. I've been staff with a company called the London News Network for about three years and decided to finally take the plunge and go freelance. And one of the things that I always had insured was my gear. Obviously I had my gear insured. There's a broker in the UK called Alan Chapman and James, and they were specialists in the video production, broadcast industry. So, you know, getting your gear insured and things like that was really important. And one of the things that they offered me at the time was income protection insurance. And.

I kind of like was like, oh God, you've got to pay all these insurances. But in actual fact, it turned out to be the best investment I ever made because I had this income protection insurance and I forget the details, but it cost me, I don't know, maybe a couple of grand a year.

But in the event of an accident, it would pay out a certain amount to cover a loss of income. So I took this policy out and.

Six months later I was filming in Chamonix in Mont Blanc with a friend of mine, Pat Doyle. We were going to do a documentary about a couple of guys who were going to parascend off the summit of Mont Blanc. And.

In a NutShell, on day one.

I slipped on a glacier while we were doing ice training and broke my ankle and had to be airlifted off the mountain, which in itself was a pretty crazy experience, being winched off the ice with a cact ankle and. But I'd snapped it in two places and so straight into surgery and pins and plates and the shoot was over there to fly another cameraman. And to cut a long story short, I was repatriated back to the UK.

And I had six months off work. And as a freelance cameraman who'd just literally gone freelance, who just bought a house, that was a bit of a challenging time, to say the least.

I would have been Completely screwed were it not for the fact that I had this income protection insurance. And I think it paid out something like, I know, £400 a week or something, but obviously that was just just enough to cover some basic living costs each month. And I was so grateful that I had it. In fact, at the time I came out of the plaster and I went and see my surgeon and he said, so your legs coming out of plaster now, you just got to kind of get on it and carry on. But he said, you can't work for another three months, four months. And so I actually said to him, well, is there any reason why I can't get on a plane and go to Thailand? He said, well, there's plenty of reasons. I could tell you not to go to Thailand, but the broken leg is not going to be one of them. So I actually put a backpack on and went to Thailand for a month and lived a lot more cheaply and met a lot of cool people and hobbled around with a walking stick. But the moral of this story is.

About two years later, so I came back and I recovered and I went back to work sort of six months later. So the income protection insurance covered me because I've kind of just bought a. Bought a flat, you know, and so that covered the mortgage. And then I went off to Thailand for a month and then I came back and got back into work and it was fine. And then about 18 months later, I was filming in South Africa with Pat again, actually, and Benedetta Pinelli, and we were doing the pilot for A Place in the Sun, Homer Away, which would have been 2003, I think, and Jasmine Harm was there, and she was a presenter and actually ended up marrying a good friend of mine, John. John took the gig over. So I basically got offered this whole. This whole gig. So I did the pilot in South Africa and I just wasn't for the egg. Well, I wasn't feeling quite right. And so when I got home, I went to see a specialist, an ankle specialist. And he said, what do you do for a living? And I said, well, I'm a cameraman. He said, well, not anymore you're not. You've developed arthritis in your ankle. And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, well, there's something called post traumatic arthritis. When you break a bone, sometimes it can develop an arthritis, a localized arthritis. And so that was it. My career was over. And at that point, I was actually offered the entire summer season on a place in the San Joao. It was like a six month Gig now as a freelancer. That was six months traveling around Spain, couldn't do it, I had to turn it down. So I actually, little side story, I actually, Ben was asking me, you know, do you know anyone else who could do it? And I put forward John Bost, who's a friend of mine who ended up doing the gig and meeting Jasmine and they got married and now they have two kids. So it's a kind of lovely, lovely story. But the reason for sharing this with you was I then.

Was unable to work again and the insurance paid out again because I was unable to work through this accident. And ultimately they paid out. I think it was like a £12 or £13,000 total permanent disability of the right ankle in relation to being a cameraman. So, you know, I still racked up a lot of debt not being able to work for this six months at this stage. And that's the time when I got a job at Procam. But the moral of this story is that Income protection insures 100%. Save my bacon. And I, we've been in Australia now six years and we've life insurance in the uk, but we're moving all of our kind of, you know, we're planning to stay in Australia. We're just about to buy a house. So I was just on the phone to insurance companies sorting out some new life insurance and critical illness cover and all that sort of thing, and I realized I didn't have any income protection insurance. And so I just took some out and it was actually less expensive than I realized. But what it does is if for some reason I get injured and I can't perform my job, it pays me out 85% of my salary.

And so for a nominal amount each month, really it's not a huge amount and it's tax deductible. I've taken this policy up and I just realized I've never actually spoken about this to you guys. And so if you are a freelancer or you run a small video production business where frankly, you know, if you weren't there, there would be a problem, then I want you to go out and actually investigate some income protection insurance today, because I realized that I didn't have any and we've been quite fortunate, quite a lot of savings and stuff, but we're dumping a lot of that into the house and so it's going to leave us in a bit of a lighter position financially than we would like to be. So I've taken this policy out and I guess I, I think about all of the things that you can spend money on in this industry and the amount of money that some people spend on gear. I mean, I spoke to someone recently who had spent £128,000 on camera equipment and was charging £500 a day. And it blew my mind that this was even possible. And yet these people wouldn't invest in themselves. And so I want you to, you know, to really think about what you spent on equipment this year or the last 12 months. And if you don't have any income protection insurance, please, please, please go and get some today and make sure it's specific to doing the work that you do. Some policies are, you know, if you can stuff envelopes, you can. As long as you can do something for work, you know, they won't pay out. But in the uk, Alan Chapman and James was a broker, I think they're still, still around, and they did very specific insurance cover for the video industry. So make sure you get a broker who's going to help you with industry because if you break something, you physically can't go and pick up a camera or, or, or, or go on a shoot. What would you, what would your life look like? What would the world look like? So I want you to, to just, it's like a kind of public service announcement today because as I was going through this myself, I was like, I've got to share this with you guys because if you don't have it, please go and organize it because I have been there and done it. I broke my leg six months into my freelance career. Couldn't work for six months. It went bad again. Two years later, it paid out again and it really saved my bacon. And so I want to just encourage you to make sure you've got kind of COVID in place so that you and your family are protected because, you know, it's the worst possible thing that can happen. And we're so dependent on.

You know, being able to pick cameras up and load cars and trucks and go on shoots that unless you have a whole ton of savings, you know, could you afford to not bring in any money for a year? And so I just wanted to encourage you to do that because it's something that's really important and. Yeah. And I'd like to share that with you today, guys. I will talk to you again on Thursday.

You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast podcast with me, your host, Dan Lenny. If you're a video business owner, it's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching. Then check out how you can work with me over@denlenny.com don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes, and we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review. And don't forget to share. If you feel you've gotten value from.

This episode and you think it would.

Be useful for other filmmakers you know.

Then please do me a massive favor.

And share it on social media and.

In groups that you might be in.

So thanks for listening.

See you in the next episode.