Can a Mutual Insurance Model benefit Australian Music Festivals?

What we learned from Australia's first-ever study into alternative models of music festival insurance.

After years of mounting insurance pressures being reported by Australian music festivals, in September 2024, we set out to explore whether there might be a better way. Together with Bloom Insurance Brokers, and with funding support from Creative Australia and Music Australia, we led the first-ever research project into the feasibility of an Australian festival-based Discretionary Mutual (DM). In simple terms — a DM is an industry-owned, not-for-profit insurance pool designed to give festivals greater control and stability.

< If you’re wondering why a climate impact agency like FEAT. cares about insurance — refresh with our recap here. >

What's interesting about this model?

A DM is a membership-based approach to insurance where festival organiser pool their contributions into a central fund that creates a safety net and pays out claims.

In this model:

• All surpluses stay in Australia — Instead of profits flowing offshore to global insurers, profits are retained in the fund, either reducing future premiums or funding safety and risk-reduction programs that benefit the festival industry.

• Coverage can be tailored to festival realities (like supporting volunteer workers and harm-reduction policies)

• Insurance costs can be stabilised over the long term, and often see cost reductions of 20- 30% through the absence of fees (brokers, underwriters) and taxes in this model.

  
  

It's a model with a proven track record for stabilising premiums for other difficult-to-insure industries (like councils and universities), so with all this in mind we set out to test whether this was the disruptive model that Australian festivals need.

Findings were promising but inconclusive

After nine months of industry engagement and participation from 74 festivals in our research, we presented our findings to Creative Australia and Music Australia, who have now released a public summary. And while the project uncovered many valuable insights, our central research question remains inconclusive as to whether a DM is feasible for the festival sector.

Why inconclusive? To properly test the viability of a DM, we needed a robust dataset across all five festival types identified in Creative Australia’s earlier Soundcheck Report: touring, large commercial, small commercial, large not-for-profit, and small not-for-profit. Despite tremendous support overall — with participating festivals representing almost 14% of the national sector — this industry support was uneven.

• Not-for-profit festivals made up the clear majority of respondents, supplying most of the usable data. Their strong engagement was invaluable and speaks to the acute pressure community and NFP organisers face around insurance costs.

  
  

• By contrast, larger commercial festivals were far less represented. Many expressed hesitation to share sensitive insurance details without strict privacy protections, while others cited uneven record-keeping or concerns about potential exposure under Freedom of Information requests.

The imbalance meant we couldn’t build a fully representative actuarial model across all five festival categories. That left us with strong signals of potential, but without the breadth of evidence needed to conclusively answer the core question of whether a DM is feasible for the Australian festival sector.

Why this study matters

Unaffordable insurance shouldn’t be an insurmountable pressure point for Australian music festivals. But unless we explore industry-owned insurance alternatives, festival organisers will continue to be remain exposed to volatile global markets, rising costs, and shrinking cover.

This study didn’t deliver a final verdict on a Discretionary Mutual. What it did deliver is something equally valuable: a clearer picture of the insurance challenges, an acknowledgement of sector sensitivities, and a path forward for building the evidence and momentum we’ll need to properly consider solutions in the future.

What we did learn

The study uncovered vital insights into the forces shaping insurance for festivals:

• Premiums are rising fast: Touring festivals saw average premiums rise more than 200% in five years; small commercial festivals by nearly 300%.

• Claims are rare: Across 74 festivals, only nine claims were reported in five years — mostly “slip-and-fall” cases. Premiums are increasing far faster than actual losses.

• Cancellation cover is collapsing: Quotes as high as 15–20% of event budgets have pushed cancellation insurance out of reach for many, forcing many festivals to self-insure.

• Coverage gaps persist: Standard policies often exclude drug-related incidents and volunteer workers — two realities festivals cannot avoid.

• Reliance on offshore insurers: Around 76% of festival policies are placed with Lloyd’s of London, tying Australian festivals to global market volatility.

  
  

These findings alone confirm that the current system is not fit-for-purpose, and that there is a strong case for looking beyond traditional insurance models to explore sector-specific solutions.

Gratitude and readiness

We are deeply grateful to the 74 festival organisers — from grassroots community gatherings to Australia’s major touring promoters — that contributed their time, data, and insights to this research. Without their openness to collaborate on our research, this first step wouldn’t have been possible.

At the same time, the hesitancy of some parts of the sector to share sensitive data highlights another reality: the industry may not be culturally ready to move collectively towards a shared insurance vehicle. Building that readiness — through trust, transparency, and ongoing data collection — is as essential as the technical modelling itself.

What happens next

Creative Australia and Music Australia will now embed insurance questions into The Bass Line — a new annual survey tracking the economics of the entire music industry. This will ensure ongoing collection of premiums and claims data, across festivals and beyond. Over time, it will give us the comprehensive dataset needed to revisit the feasibility of a DM with greater confidence.

Call to action: One thing this project did not do was to ask participating festivals directly whether they would support — or consider supporting — a Discretionary Mutual. We thought this was a premature question given most festivals were encountering the concept of a DM for the first time, however we would like to ask this now.

<< If you are a festival that is interested in, or already supportive of, exploring a DM model, we encourage you to leave your details – EOI Form Here. >>

If there is strong uptake, we will consider forming an industry working group to carry forward the investigation, in parallel with the broader data collection through The Bass Line.

👉 Keen to learn more? Read Creative Australia’s summary of our 50 page report.