Indie Film Insurance: Balancing GL Limits with Ultra Low Budget?

Hey everyone,

I'm Simone, a 2nd AD, and I'm currently helping a director friend on a super shoestring indie feature. We're talking absolute minimum budget, we're scraping together gear like a Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 with some older prime lenses, and maybe renting a Forza 500 II for a few days. Our sound op has a MixPre-6 II, so audio's covered.

We're trying to do everything by the book, but we hit a snag with insurance. We're looking at general liability, and every guide I've seen suggests minimums like $2M/$4M GL limits, plus bundling policies for equipment, E&O, etc. It all makes sense, risk-wise.

The problem is, those numbers feel astronomical for our budget. We're trying to figure out how to be responsible and protect ourselves without spending a huge chunk of our entire production budget just on insurance. What strategies have you used on ultra low-budget indies to balance these recommended GL limits and policy bundling with a very tight budget? Any advice on navigating this would be incredibly helpful.