Sex, drugs and underlying health issues: The diabolical cost of insuring old rockers

“Insurance” must rank as one of the most un-rock ’n’ roll words in the dictionary, alongside “annuity” and “podiatry”. But as an ever-growing number of ageing rock stars hit the road, it’s a word that is increasingly in the spotlight. As with other forms of insurance – health, travel or car – the cost to musicians of insuring themselves against cancelling a concert due to ill-health rises sharply with age. And with thousands of dollars of income at risk from abandoning a show, the stakes for these artists couldn’t be higher.

Concert venues and festival fields are bursting with mature heritage acts. In Britain this year there will be shows by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (average age 73) and AC/DC (Brian Johnson is 77, while Angus Young is 69). Stevie Wonder, 74, is rumoured to be plotting something big, and the Rolling Stones remain an active performing unit despite reportedly aborting plans to play live in London this year (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are 81, Ronnie Wood is 77).

Ozzy Osbourne performs in California.Credit: AP

In July, heavy metal legends Black Sabbath will reform for a vast concert in their native Birmingham. They’re all in their mid-70s, and much-loved singer Ozzy Osbourne suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

Analysis in 2023 found that the average age of Glastonbury headliners rose from 26 to 49 in two decades, a figure that would be far higher had whippersnappers such as Adele and Stormzy not dragged it down. Paul McCartney was 80 when he topped the Pyramid Stage bill in 2022; this year’s event will be headlined by the comparatively sprightly Neil Young, 79.

A performer’s age has a material impact on what it costs to buy so-called “non-appearance” cover, a category of insurance that guarantees their fee if they can’t do a show due to illness or injury. The numbers are stark, according to insurance insiders. A young-ish DJ – a genre of musician usually cheap to insure as the artists don’t sing – might be charged 1.5 per cent of their promised fee by an insurance company for non-appearance cover.

So if the fee for performing is $200,000, then the DJ pays $3000 for the policy. This rises to about 3 per cent for a band with multiple members. But for older artists in their 70s and above, the insurance can cost between 10 and 15 per cent of their performance fee, meaning up to $30,000 of their $200,000 income. For a big band earning $6 million for a stadium show, that’s an eye-watering $900,000 spent on insurance.

Paul McCartney at Glastonbury in 2022.Credit: AP

“Statistically, the older the artists get, the more probability there is of medical issues causing them to be unable to perform. And that is what pushes the premium rates up,” says Tim Thornhill, managing director of Tysers Live, which offers music and live events insurance. “And it’s more of an issue when it is more than one individual in a band, so you’ve got the compound effect of having multiple people within a band.”

It’s a game of risk. Brokers such as Tysers approach insurance underwriters on behalf of musicians, and these underwriters consult actuaries, who crunch statistics to determine the likelihood of a claim. Based on the actuaries’ findings, the underwriters work out how much to charge artists. And, unsurprisingly, things have become costly.

Paul Twomey, a partner at insurance broker Specialist Risk Group, has worked with U2, Madonna and Coldplay. He says the cost of insurance for older rockers almost doubled overnight after COVID. “When tours came back, insurers were trying to make back money, and the easy place that they saw to make it was on the older generation,” says Twomey. In common parlance, the price (and risk) shot up.

A way of getting the cost down, Twomey says, was for stringent exemptions to be added to policies. These include stricter exclusion of any existing medical conditions and restricting the policy’s time span to the absolute minimum number of days. Insurance companies are also demanding comprehensive medical tests before a policy is offered.

Neil Young, 79, will take centre stage at this year’s Glastonbury festival.Credit: AP

“Insurance companies are insisting on full medicals beforehand, including blood and urine samples, which never used to happen in the old days,” says Twomey. “I started doing this type of insurance in the 1980s, and in those days you had a one page tick-box form, and when you went to the doctor they just took your height and weight. That was it. Now it’s proper screenings.”

From heart or plastic surgery to hair transplants, they want to know everything. Image-conscious, hard-living rock stars are reluctant to comply. “And which 70- or 80-year-old wouldn’t flag something on their blood or urine?” says Twomey. “It’s almost inevitable.”

Scottish singer Fish, formerly of the band Marillion, is about to head out on a 15-date, largely sold-out farewell tour of the UK. The 66-year-old has taken out insurance but says it’s “getting very, very expensive”, without providing a figure. “All prominent members of the band and crew have to sign a disclaimer saying ‘there are no underlying health issues’. Anything that happened to them in the last five years, should it recur on the tour, it negates the insurance,” says Fish. He tells me he’s got two replacement knees. “If anything happens, say for example I damage my leg on tour and damage my knee, then I have no insurance because I had a knee operation.”

AC/DC’s Angus Young and Brian Johnson.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Even discussing a potential medical condition with a doctor can negate a policy. A few years ago, Fish says, an insurance company – not the one he’s currently with – refused to pay up after a cancelled show because someone connected with his party discussed a hypothetical medical issue with a doctor 24 hours before the policy kicked in. The condition was therefore deemed “pre-existing”. The lesson has stuck.

“I’m sitting here, and I’m two weeks before a tour, and if I had any inkling of anything being wrong – which I don’t have – I wouldn’t go to a doctor because you’d be on record as going to a doctor. ‘What did you see him about?’ You’ve got to be aware. Don’t expect sympathy,” he says.

Then there are onerous “deductible” clauses on big tours. These mean that insurance companies don’t pay out until the second cancelled show (or third, fourth or fifth depending on the policy and star’s age). For the first cancelled show, the artist takes the financial hit. Deductibles are “the killer”, says Fish.

This being insurance, an ecosystem of workarounds has sprouted up. Some insurers offer no claims bonuses – effectively money back after a tour if a policy isn’t used. Then there’s the upfront no claims bonus – money earned at the start of the tour that’s clawed back if there’s a claim. Some performers use sponsorship money as de facto insurance, while others insist that promoters in different territories insure them separately, thereby slicing the risk into bite-size chunks and removing the need for deductibles.

The corollary of this minefield is that many ageing bands simply don’t bother with insurance. That’s right – in an act of rebellion that would put young acts to shame, older acts often tour with no cover at all. “Over the years, artists’ appetite for buying this insurance has fallen away,” says Twomey. Performers simply absorb any losses themselves.

“Plenty of artists tour without insurance,” says Steve Howell, director of music at insurance company Howden’s Sport and Entertainment division. “I’ve got some artists who we quote for every year because their accountants say they should have it and the artist says, ‘No, I’m not spending money like that. I’ve been touring for four decades.’ So they self-insure on the basis that if they miss a show they will cover the wages of their staff, and they would just miss out on that income. Some artists have got enough money.”

Put crudely, for a huge band that plays a 40-date stadium tour and stands to earn millions per show, it’s cheaper to suck up the losses from one missed show than shell out insurance for all 40 at 15 per cent (costing many more millions). Rather than the insurance company taking the risk, the artists shoulder it.

A tour promoter who has worked for the world’s biggest concert companies can see why artists shun insurance. “Some artists make $8 to $10 million a night. They think, ‘That’s a million bucks a night to insure us in case someone’s ill.’ The reality is, if the drummer’s sick you just get a new one in.”

One of the brokers even heard that the Stones chose not to take out full non-appearance insurance on their most recent tour. “There was a market rumour that the last time they just opted not to go with insurance because it just didn’t make sense,” he says. “And Jagger is a very financially astute man.” A Stones spokesman declined to comment.

Similarly, it’s unclear whether Sabbath will seek or get insurance, particularly with Osbourne’s known health conditions. “In these situations it all depends on how co-operative the artist is,” says Howell. “If they’re willing to undergo full medical examinations and tests then this will give the underwriters the information they need to underwrite the risk … Ozzy will probably outlive us all.” A spokesperson for their concert was approached for comment.

All of which puts singers of a certain age in a bit of a pickle: to insure or not to insure? Fish says he has to. Not only is his farewell tour nowhere near the multimillion-a-night bracket, but he says he has too often played “housey-housey” with tours (“the tour goes down and you lose your house, literally”).

Still, things are about to change. As soon as he’s taken his final bow in Glasgow next month, Fish is permanently relocating to his small farm in the Outer Hebrides. “There is more money in sheep than Spotify,” he says of today’s parlous music industry finances. Thankfully for him, he’ll never have to think about that – or gig insurance – again.

The Telegraph, London

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