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.

Guest: Frank Zuccarello, Managing Partner of Exceptional Risk Advisors.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Introduction
• 00:34 — How do you price a risk with no history?
• 01:50 — A young band, from $5,000 a month of cover to $250,000
• 02:43 — "Twenty percent of our premium and eighty percent of our headaches"
• 03:00 — Where ordinary disability cover runs out
• 04:15 — Excess and surplus lines, with Lloyd's behind the desk
• 04:33 — Binding authority and the Friday afternoon call
• 05:48 — One-day, one-season and one-tour policies
• 06:50 — "We're only going to make you whole"
• 08:35 — The one test, and whether it stretches to carried interest
• 09:28 — The tour advance with no dates
• 10:49 — Banks lending against a star's contract
• 11:06 — Catalogue loans versus advances
• 11:33 — One storm, two outcomes
• 12:24 — What a rescheduled show costs
• 12:54 — COVID, and why a pandemic still isn't covered
• 14:49 — Ageing headliners: more tickets, higher premiums
• 15:54 — Mental health and tour cancellations
• 16:57 — Disgrace cover: protecting the sponsor from the star
• 18:53 — "That might be a new product for us, Phil"
• 19:21 — $130m on any one person
• 19:53 — Ten or fifteen syndicates on a single policy
• 20:36 — A soft market, and reinsurers pulling back
• 21:46 — Sign-off

Links

• Exceptional Risk Advisors
• "Concord raises $1.8bn in music rights securitization," Alternatives Watch, July 2025
• "AC/DC show postponed as storm wreaks havoc on East Coast concerts," Ultimate Classic Rock, September 2026
• "Shawn Mendes cancels world tour to focus on his mental health," Digital Music News, July 2022

Follow the Fortunes covers the risk behind the return in sport and entertainment. Hosted by Phil Schmidt of Frontpool.

Sound by AleXZavesa and Dvir Silverstone from Pixabay

Views expressed by guests are their own. Nothing here is insurance, investment or legal advice.