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Tyler (00:00):

Fame is a double-edged sword, right? You know, fame allows a lot of these individuals to create tremendous amount of wealth, but with that comes a tremendous amount of exposure

Julie (00:14):

All right. Well, welcome to The Risk Rundown. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, I am here with my co-host, Tyler Banks. Hello, Tyler.

Tyler (00:22):

Hello, Julie.

Julie (00:23):

Hello. We are here with a special guest of ours here at Alliant, Olya. How you doing, Olya?

Olya (00:29):

Doing well, Julie. Thank you so much for having me.

Julie (00:32):

Good. So as we are gonna be transitioning into our podcast topic today of growing visibility for public personas, like athletes, entertainers, influencers, celebrities, so that brings a good segue because we are gonna do, like, a little game called Red Light, Green Light. What I would love for you to do is kind of give us either it's a no-go a- and they shouldn't be doing it, or it's a green light, yes, they should be doing it, about maybe some of the needs of these public personas, right? Like, what the what they should be doing or what they should be considering. So the first one is hiring household staff. Should somebody be hiring without background checks?

Olya (01:16):

Red light. Definitely red light.

Julie (01:19):

I love how she's so excited. Red light.

Olya (01:21):

I got very excited, only because I have seen so many claims throughout my career of household staff and the types of claims that arise out of being a domestic employee of a, either a high-profile individual or athlete or entertainer. So definitely it's a green light to hire, but you cannot hire without a background check. It is one of the most important things you can do, and good references.

Tyler (01:49):

All right, Olya, here's one. A young athlete or entertainer signing their first major, you know, major league,  you know, contract or an entertainer signing their first contract with a major record label, you know, red light or green light?

Olya (02:06):

Absolutely green light, except make sure you have your attorneys involved, make sure you have your business manager involved, make sure you have all the contracts reviewed before you proceed with signing. And of course, tell your insurance agent.

Julie (02:20):

Of course. Of course, right? Of course. Of course. Okay, so one more from me, and then I think Tyler might have one too. So one from me is sharing luxury purchases on social media.

Olya (02:31):

I'm going to say it's a major red flag. It's a major red flag for many different reasons. Is it good to go buy and purchase these luxury goods? Absolutely. However, posting it on social media, unfortunately, I'm not the only one following them, right? Not their insurance agent, their lawyer, but also other people are following them. And when you're posting about social... You know, when you're posting on social media about your luxury items, your Rolex that you purchased, the new Hermes bag, Chanel bag, you're also opening yourself up to potential home invasions, robberies. So that is a red light for me. 

Tyler (03:11):

Alright. How about a high-profile individual accepting a new endorsement deal?

Olya (03:18):

Green light, money coming in, absolutely. Tell your insurance broker because that is gonna be creating wealth.

Julie (03:27):

So when... So I have a, I do wanna kind of get clarification on this. So when people hear- Yeah the term public persona, they often think of, like, celebrities or professional athletes. How do you define, you know, someone that's in the, you know, having a public persona or that falls into that category?

Olya (03:48):

So now we're not just limited to actors and actresses and athletes, right? There's also this huge group of influencers that are posting online that are waiting to see how many clicks they get. So you've got the influencers, you've got your social-- whether it's on Instagram, TikTok, podcasters, models. And then the other thing that I've also noticed is now children of these actors and actresses are also starting to become public personas. And, and nowadays, with everything being online and how exposed all of this is, there's definitely a much, much larger gamut of who is a public persona.

Tyler (04:35):

You bring up some good, good items, Olya. You know, I don't think 10 years ago we were talking about, you know, podcasters, social media influencers. But you know, if you look at the last couple of years, you know, what, what is the risk profile? What's changed in the marketplace from your perspective, you know, with these, you know, high-profile individuals?

Olya (04:55):

There's a lot more coverages available for some of these public personas that are online and posting and talking more and, and having a lot of opinions. There's various liability limits that are available depending on, you know, because sometimes they're based on the public persona, they don't fit into a box, so you have to go outside the box to go and get the higher limits, the different markets. So I think the markets have evolved to also protect the influencers and the social media personas of today.

Julie (05:29):

Olya, what do you see as, like, the most common liability, like exposures that people have? I mean, you mentioned it, like the liability, they need to make sure that they have proper liability limits, but what are the exposures that they have?

Olya (05:40):

I mean, not just the basic auto limits, right? You have your auto limits, you have your homeowners limits, you need your personal umbrella there. Also from liability, when you're hiring domestic staff, you need to make sure that you're also running the background checks, but also making sure that the client is aware that employment practices liability is a huge topic because we're seeing a lot of wrongful termination claims. We've seen a lot of hostile work environment claims.

Tyler (06:08):

We have touched on a few of these, but what are some triggers that these entertainers, these athletes would warrant an insurance review?

Olya (06:18):

I personally, I think when you're extremely high profile, I think one a, one review a year is not enough. I think you should be checking in, you know, at least quarterly if, and reviewing everything because a lot of the times these entertainers are gifted things, they don't always tell their business manager, they don't always tell their wealth advisor. Sometimes they're, they purchase things and they forgot to, you know, they forget to tell their business manager. Whether you purchase big items, whether you buy a car for your girlfriend, whether you buy real estate or start investing in real estate. Another big ticket item, I think, is if you're getting married or if you're having a child. Those are also big ticket items when it comes to changing out your liability.

Julie (07:07):

Do you see, I mean, do you see that that being, like, the largest gaps in coverages is when people just don't tell their business manager or tell their, specifically their insurance agent about that kind of stuff? Or what do you see is the biggest gaps in coverages that high-profile people typically encounter?

Olya (07:25):

So because I'm in that era where social media is super important, I mean, I've seen things where clients have purchased things, and I reached out to our business managers, and they're like, "Oh, I had no idea." And I was like, "I did. I saw it online." So, a lot of the times it could be that. It could be, let's say they decide to charter a jet, and maybe they don't have non-owned aviation coverage, or maybe they decide to go on an extravagant vacation and don't get the trip coverage or don't get the travel coverage. So it's definitely, it's their ongoing and lifestyle that sometimes these business managers or sometimes their wealth advisors are, don't know because they're just going a million miles an hour, so.

Tyler (08:13):

When we talk about these high-profile individuals, liability, umbrella coverage is probably one of the biggest hot topic items for discussion, right? So, you know, how should these high-profile individuals think about umbrella coverage, and how much is enough? 'Cause I'm sure you have daily conversations with these individuals trying to procure them, you know, excess liability coverage, and at what limit?

Olya (08:39):

How much can you afford to lose? I think one of my mentors told me a very, very long time ago when I first started, who I'm-- "How much can you afford to lose?" And that is a very important question to ask the entertainer, the influencer, the business manager, because you wanna try to get as close to your net worth as possible, but sometimes when you're over, you know, 50, 100 million, sometimes it's difficult to get up there. But I think at the very minimum, it's a good idea to be as close to your net worth as possible.

Julie (09:14):

Yeah. I mean, I think that to your point, there's like so much, so many moving parts and so many things that they're purchasing, and that then also exposes them liability, with liability exposure too. I mean, it kind of goes hand in hand. I mean, there's, you know, when they're purchasing multiple homes, they have staff, they have guests coming over, they have, you know, parties at their home, they have public-facing commitments and events that they have to go to. I mean, all of that becomes a very complex liability exposure, and I think that, you know, someone like you would be able to at least help navigate that maybe with, you know, what is needed and, and which companies we can go to and that kind of thing.

Olya (10:00):

Absolutely. And it starts by having a conversation, and I think that's starts by picking up the phone. It starts by sitting down and talking about the exposures, right? That's also one of the most important things is actually having the conversation with the, with the advisor so they can relay that to their client.

Tyler (10:20):

So Olya, when you think about these, again, these high-profile individuals, a lot of them have very strong advisory teams, right?

They've got business managers, they've got attorneys, they've got accountants, they've got insurance, insurance brokers. You know, what are some things that you can see, at least on the liability side, that these individuals need to be aware of? You know, what kind of protection should they be doing? What kind of, you know, things should they be looking out to help protect them, their wealth, their newly created wealth, and their families?

Olya (10:53):

Depending on, you know, which way you're going and d- depending on your career, E&O liability, super important. Crime. A lot of these influencers have entourage. It's not just them, right? It's not just them traveling from LA to Ibiza or LA to Italy. It's, it's, they're coming, they're going with a s- with staff, they're going with entourage. That their exposure is even more so because if anything does happen, whether it's on the private jet, whether it's on the luxury home that they rented, the contract is in the name of that influencer. It is in the name of their LLC or their trust. So it's super extremely important to make sure that the liability matches, again, going back to the conversation of the liability matches the net worth.

Julie (11:45):

Well, and I think too is like the, these people have targets on their back, even if they're not doing anything reckless or they're not doing anything that could, what we would have typically seen as like, as an exposure, right? You know, the liability is probably a huge, huge piece of it, but I think also like one of the things that,  I've come across in the past is with these, you know, high-profile individuals is talking about having a target on your back. It's not just the, the liability of the damages and the loss of income for the other person if it's a car accident or whatever. I know that, that there's been times that people have tried to sue for, you know, autographed memorabilia or, you know, they wanna get the settlement, the cash, but then there have been  you know, situations where people have wanted, if it be an autographed jersey or if it be an autographed something of that person because they know that that could be worth a lot of money. It might not be, you know, the dollar amount that they, you know, that they were looking for, but they could resell it and get a significant amount of money. So I know that that has been a situation in the past as well.

Olya (12:54):

Exactly. And then when you add another exposure like a pool or a diving board or a trampoline or a guest house, you know, when you start adding additional exposures and on top of it alcohol or other things,  unfortunately, it just opens up that homeowner, that property owner to additional liability.

Tyler (13:19):

Yeah. Fame is a double-edged sword, right? You know, fame allows a lot of these individuals to create tremendous amount of wealth, but with that comes a tremendous amount of exposure. So these individual are exposed to their, put their personal lives are on display for public consumption. And, you know, a lot of that comes with risks because now everyone knows where they are, they know what they're doing, they know what they're buying, they know where they're buying it. So there's an art form to finding, you know, coverages for these individuals, and something that I know that you work on a daily basis to find solutions for our clients. And the more exposed they are, the more difficult the marketplace is, right?

Olya (14:02):

Exactly. Because nowadays our underwriters are not just taking our word for it, they're going online, they're going on social media, they're going on chat and o- other AI sites that allow and that give way too much information and makes our job even harder.

Tyler (14:19):

So I guess the positive is, is that there's more market availability for a lot of these high-profile individuals. The market has transformed to meet the needs for s- for these types of exposures, and newly created exposures that weren't even discussed 10 years ago, so that's a positive. But also a word of caution, 'cause you, you made also the comment earlier that a lot of times they're doing things or acquiring things and not telling anyone until all of a sudden we see it posted on social media. We're like, "Whoa, didn't know about that risk."

Julie (14:53):

So Olya, I have a quick question before we kind of start wrapping up. Now that Tyler and I are podcast hosts, are we considered influencers? Do we need to be concerned about

Tyler (15:06):

I sure hope not.

Julie (15:07):

Do we need to be concerned about our liability exposures?

Olya (15:12):

Well, I will tell you this, it depends on how many clicks you get. It depends on how many products you promote. It depends...

Julie (15:21):

So, I think we're gonna wrap it up here.

Olya (15:24):

Thank you, Julie, and thank you, Tyler. I really very much enjoyed this discussion and having me on. This is... I appreciate both of you very much.

Tyler (15:33):

Of course.

Julie (15:34):

Well, I just wanna thank all of our viewers and thank everyone for joining us. This has been, an episode that we, I feel like we've kind of gotten a few topics combined. So I think this has been a great episode, and thank you, Olya, so much for joining us, and to all of our viewers, as always, stay safe and stay protected.

03:33 — Who qualifies as a public persona today
Public visibility extends well beyond athletes and entertainers. From influencers and podcasters to social media creators, growing visibility can introduce new insurance and liability considerations.

05:30 — The most common liability exposures for public figures
As wealth grows, liability extends beyond basic homeowner and auto limits. Household staff, employment practices, and appropriate umbrella coverage can all play an important role in protecting an evolving personal risk profile.

06:18 — When to review a high-net worth insurance program
Major purchases, real estate acquisitions, marriage, children, and other life changes can quickly alter insurance needs. Quarterly conversations with advisors help ensure coverage keeps pace with a changing lifestyle.

08:24 — How much umbrella liability protection is enough
Determining appropriate umbrella limits often begins with understanding what is at risk. As wealth increases, liability strategies should be evaluated alongside an individual's net worth.

10:29 — The importance of a coordinated advisory team
Public personas often rely on business managers, attorneys, accountants, and insurance professionals working together. Coordinated guidance can help address evolving exposures as careers, lifestyles, and public visibility continue to change.