High speed car chases, wrestling with crocodiles and fighting through a forest of flames may sound like your typical 007 movie but for a cast of stuntmen, it’s all in a day’s work.
Prepared for the most outrageous tasks, avoiding serious accidents on set is not always easy. During the filming of the latest James Bond movie ‘Quantum of Solace’, a series of three separate incidents left three stuntmen badly injured.
Ari Comninos suffered serious head injuries when the Alfa Romeo he was driving in a chase scene ploughed into a truck. During another stunt, British engineer Fraser Dunn was at the wheel of an Aston Martin when it skidded off the road and plunged into icy waters at high speed, and hours later another stuntman was injured in a separate car chase.
As a result of these series of unfortunate incidents, Daniel Craig who plays action hero James Bond has reportedly insured his body for £5m as he will be doing some of his own stunts.
According to Turul Brown, Scheme Director of Lloyd’s broker IMS Film Insurance, not all insurers would want to cover stuntmen because when things go wrong, they usually go wrong very badly.
“Insurers would want to see storyboards, scripts, a full risk assessment and the stuntmen’s CV with a list of all the previous films that he or she had been in before agreeing terms,” Brown commented.
“Employers’ Liability Insurance covers the producers for compensation damages to stuntmen in the event of an accident which caused bodily injury or disease. The legal minimum limit for damages is £5m as standard but is often provided at £10m by most insurers. This would also normally cover any legal defence costs incurred by the producers in relation to any legal proceedings brought by the injured party.
“On small productions general hazardous activities are excluded; this is because not all insurers are happy to provide cover for the likes of underwater work, free-jumping, pyrotechnics that are likely to be seen in a James Bond style film for a small premium. When stunts such as these are included in a script, premiums begin to increase significantly.”
Lloyd’s links to James Bond
• The devastating fire at Pinewood Studios in July 2006 destroyed a $20m set for Casino Royale which was insured within the Lloyd’s market but luckily for the producers filming had already finished at the set.
• James Bond’s very own Miss Moneypenny, AKA actress Samantha Bond, was the special guest at a celebratory Lloyd’s dinner back in April 2007.
• During the Second World War, the employees of Lloyd’s were evacuated to Pinewood studios, the home of the James Bond movies.
