Customer Stories
MusicPro Insurance is committed to providing an excellent experience for our customers. Most often that involves the buying, renewing or updating of a policy. However, customers purchase insurance for a reason. And when the unfortunate day arrives when you have a claim, we want to make that process as quick and efficient as possible.
The following excerpt from Playback Magazine describes how MusicPro Insurance helped two customers recover from devastating loss.
MusicPro & Hurricane Katrina
Countless musicians were hit hard with the destruction imposed by Hurricane Katrina. In the first 60 days, MusicPro Insurance, which was created in 2000 by ASCAP and Sterling & Sterling, paid music professionals affected by Katrina over $100,000 for their instrument and equipment losses. Playback talked with some MusicPro ASCAP members whose musical careers were salvaged by MusicPro Insurance. Here are two stories among many:
Terry Brewster
"Right before the hurricane, I had finally decided to give up my music career fulltime and to just do it for fun in New Orleans," said Terry Brewster, a guitarist whose house and musical equipment was damaged during Hurricane Katrina. "I had been living in New Orleans for 10 years. I just figured if I couldn't have a music career like I wanted, at least I would have fun living in the city I love."
Brewster was at his girlfriend's house about 25 miles away from his home in New Orleans. "I was on the second floor, and there was actually no flood waters on 3rd and St. Charles where my house was," he said. "So I assumed that none of my gear was damaged. I didn't get back to my house until about three weeks later."
Unbeknownst to him, Brewster's house was actually flooded from the inside due to a small hole in his roof. "I went by my apartment and on the outside it looked perfect, like there was nothing wrong," he recounted. "But when I got in, there was apparently a small hole in the roof that filled up the attic with water... Once the attic filled, the sheet rock ceiling just rained down on everything I owned in the entire apartment."
He found his gear had severe water damage. "All the guitars were warped, and the amps were soaked," he said. "The wood on the cabinets were warped and the pedals were completely covered in water. I called MusicPro and told them. MusicPro paid me within 10 days. I was on the phone with them less than 15 minutes, and it was no problem. It was unbelievable."
As Brewster received insurance money for his gear, he also decided to give music one more chance. "I told you I had totally given up my music career," he said. "I decided to take one final stab at a music career. I resigned at the law firm I was working at, and I'm up here in New York right now playing with the best band I've ever been in. It may not work out, and I may be back in New Orleans in a year, back at a law, firm but I hope not." Check out Terry Brewster's band at www.cobralilymusic.com.
Ken Davies
Ken Davies, a classical composer and trombone player, was about seven miles from the Gulf Coast when the storm came in. He boarded up his home and personal studio and gathered up his valuable equipment, such as computers, keyboards and his trombone. He didn't expect any major damage to happen.
"In our case, there was no reason to expect any kind of water damage unless the wind blew the roof off or something," he said. "Since it was a hurricane not a tornado, we weren't expecting anything of that magnitude. We were expecting maybe a tree blowing against the house, but the last thing we were expecting was water. We had boarded up our house and made it as secure as we could."
But water did flood in, a mixture of salt water from the ocean, rain water and swamp water from the bayou that was only a block away from his home. "From the standpoint of instruments, some of the things on my rack were low enough to get touched by the water," said Davies. "To make the story fairly short, 20-to 30-foot waves hit the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Louisiana. It took out blocks of buildings pretty much across the board. We're talking about people's houses, where they were left with nothing but slab, and all of their possessions floated away somewhere."
When it came time to collect insurance on his damaged equipment and software, Davies found MusicPro easy to deal with and very helpful. "They were wonderful people to work with," he said. "It was quick and easy. It seemed as though a lot of the people involved had a good grasp of instruments and a good grasp of electronic equipment."
Davies says that if he didn't have MusicPro, he would have been "miserable" because he wouldn't have been able to rebuild his personal studio as quickly as he did. With the insurance money, he was able to get back on track making and recording music within a few months!