Life Insurance for Stunt Performers

Ask a stunt performer what a normal Tuesday looks like and the answer might be a fight sequence down a stairwell, a fall from a rig onto an airbag, or being set alight for a controlled burn before the director calls it a wrap and everyone moves on to the next scene. None of that is an accident waiting to happen — it is the job, planned to the second, rehearsed repeatedly, and signed off by a stunt coordinator before a camera rolls. But it is still a job built around deliberately putting a body through falls, fire, fights and vehicle work that would be treated as an emergency anywhere else.

That combination — genuinely hazardous, genuinely controlled — is exactly what makes life insurance for stunt performers a different conversation from most occupations. This page sets out what UK safety data can honestly say about the work, how insurers actually underwrite it, and where stunt performers most often trip themselves up when they apply.

What the safety data can, and can't, tell you about stunt work

Start with what is actually published, because a specific, sourced answer is more useful than a guess dressed up as one. The Health and Safety Executive collects and reports two main kinds of workplace figures: fatal injury statistics, built by industry sector, and the Labour Force Survey's self-reported non-fatal injury and ill-health rates, also broken down by broad industry — construction, agriculture, manufacturing, transport and so on. Stunt performance, like professional sport, is not one of those sectors — it is a small, highly specialised corner of the screen and entertainment industry, and no government table reports on it as a standalone job.

That gap is not evidence the work is safe; it is evidence the dataset was never built to capture this occupation. What is documented, by the industry's own safety framework rather than HSE, is that stunt sequences in UK film and television are planned, risk-assessed activities, run under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 like any other workplace, with a named stunt coordinator responsible for the sequence and registered performers graded through the joint industry scheme run with bodies including Equity and BECTU. The honest position holds two things together: no official injury rate exists for this job title, and the job itself is built around hazards — height, fire, vehicles, impact — that would be exceptional in almost any other line of work.

Source: HSE, Labour Force Survey self-reported injury/ill-health by industry, 2022/23–2024/25, hse.gov.uk.

How many stunt performers are hurt, or killed, each year in the UK?

There is no official annual figure for this, and treating any number found online as government-verified data would be a mistake — HSE has not produced one, and the working population of registered stunt performers in the UK is small enough that a single incident can swing an informal count without telling you much about the underlying risk. That is part of why no public body tracks it as its own statistic: too specialised a job, too small a workforce, for a sector table to be built around it.

What is not in doubt is the nature of the hazard. A working stunt performer's week can include a fall onto a crash mat or airbag from height, a fight or weapons sequence choreographed to look uncontrolled while being anything but, a vehicle stunt involving a car, bike or precision driving manoeuvre, or fire work using flame-retardant gel and protective layers under a costume. Each of those categories carries a real chance of injury even when executed exactly as planned, which is why every one of them is rehearsed, risk-assessed and signed off before filming rather than improvised on the day. The absence of a government fatality figure for this job does not mean the risk is small — it means it has never been measured at that level of detail.

Real risk, tightly controlled — why that distinction matters to an underwriter

It would be easy to assume "highly risk-assessed" and "genuinely hazardous" cancel each other out. They don't, and this is the point an underwriter is actually trying to price. UK stunt work operates inside a strong safety culture: coordinators plan sequences in detail, performers are registered and graded by discipline, protective rigging is standard, and productions carry their own health and safety sign-off before a hazardous sequence is shot. That reduces the chance any individual stunt goes wrong. It does not remove the underlying activity — falls from height, deliberate vehicle manoeuvres, controlled fire, high-impact fight work — that carries the risk in the first place.

Insurers price both halves of that picture. A profession built around choreographed, risk-assessed hazard is treated more favourably than reckless or unregulated risk-taking, but it is still an occupational hazard in its own right, priced directly rather than waved through as if the job were office-based. Most application forms separate "what do you do for a living" from "do you take part in any hazardous activities" as two questions; for a stunt performer, both describe the same working week, so the risk is underwritten as the job itself, not bolted on afterwards as a hobby declaration.

What actually happens when a stunt performer applies for life insurance

In practice, a working stunt performer applying for cover is very rarely refused outright purely because of the job title. What typically happens is one of three outcomes: standard terms, where an insurer's appetite and your personal risk profile line up; a loading — a modest percentage added to the standard premium — which is the most common result for full-time professionals; or, sometimes, a policy that covers death from any cause but carries a specific exclusion for death arising directly from stunt work. A flat decline tends to be reserved for cases where stunt risk combines with other adverse factors, rather than applied to a competent, working professional alone.

An underwriter assessing the application will usually want more detail than the word "stunt performer" on a form: the types of stunts you actually perform — fire, height, vehicle, fight or water work, for instance, since these carry different weightings — how frequently you work, how long you have held registration and at what grade, and your injury and claims history. Two stunt performers can be offered quite different terms by the same insurer depending on these answers, which is exactly why giving a full, accurate picture works in your favour rather than against it.

What moves the price, or the terms, up or down

Several specific details make a bigger difference to a stunt performer's quote than the job title alone.

• Type of stunt work. Fire work, high falls and vehicle stunts are generally viewed more cautiously than lower-impact disciplines such as fight choreography at ground level, because the potential severity of an incident differs.
• Frequency of work. Someone performing stunts most weeks of the year carries more cumulative exposure than someone who takes on a handful of jobs annually alongside other work.
• Experience and registration. A long-standing, higher grade on the joint industry stunt register, with a clean claims history, tends to be viewed more favourably than someone newly registered.
• Whether the case goes to a specialist underwriter. Insurers who understand entertainment and sports risk price it properly; a generic online quote engine built for common, low-hazard occupations often cannot, and either loads heavily by default or declines automatically.
• The amount of cover you're applying for. A larger sum assured naturally draws closer underwriting scrutiny of the occupational detail than a modest policy sized to clear a specific debt.
• Health, smoking and age. These remain the biggest drivers of price for everyone, and a fit, non-smoking performer in good health can still be offered better terms than an unfit, smoking office worker twice their age.

That last point is easy to lose sight of when the job itself sounds dramatic. Occupation is one input into the price, not the only one, and it does not override the rest of your health picture — a genuinely hazardous job does not automatically mean the worst terms available.

Where stunt performers go wrong on an application

The most common and most costly mistake is under-declaring the work — writing "actor," "performer" or "self-employed, film industry" on an application rather than being specific about stunt work, the types of stunts performed and how often. This is not usually deliberate dishonesty; it often comes from not wanting to sound alarming, or assuming a general description is close enough. It isn't. An insurer that later discovers the true nature of the job, at claim stage, can treat the original application as a material non-disclosure — which risks the claim itself, not just the premium. Being specific from the outset is protective, not risky.

The second mistake is assuming one poor quote is the market's final word. Because appetite for stunt and entertainment risk varies enormously between insurers, a heavy loading or an automatic decline from a mainstream comparison site is usually evidence that its underwriting system was never built to price this job, not evidence that cover is unavailable. A specialist broker who regularly places film, television and high-risk performance work can often take the same case to an insurer with proper appetite for it and come back with materially better terms.

The third is going straight to a generic comparison site built around common, low-risk occupations and accepting whatever the algorithm returns. That approach works fine for an office job; it is the wrong tool for a job insurers underwrite individually, and it is precisely the gap a specialist broker exists to close — a point that also applies to other professions where the real underwriting detail matters more than the job title, from how tattoo artists are underwritten to the wider pattern set out in our guide to how life insurance is priced across hazardous and physically demanding jobs.

Why cover still matters if stunt work is how you earn a living

None of the underwriting detail above changes the underlying reason to have cover — if anything, it strengthens it. Most working stunt performers are self-employed or work production to production, with no employer sick pay or death-in-service scheme sitting behind them the way a salaried employee might have. That shifts the entire responsibility for protecting a partner, children or a mortgage onto cover arranged deliberately, rather than something provided automatically through a job — a gap shared with other self-employed workers, and one explored from the state-support side in our piece on what gaps in National Insurance contributions can mean for bereavement support.

A level-term policy, paying a fixed lump sum if you die within a set number of years, is often the natural starting point for clearing a mortgage or replacing income while a family is young — the same logic covered in our guide to what happens if a mortgage is still running later in life. Most level-term policies also build in a terminal illness benefit, paid out early if you are diagnosed with a terminal condition, which is worth understanding in its own right and is explained in our piece on what that early payment can mean once a diagnosis is terminal. You can get a life insurance quote and talk it through with a broker who understands how this kind of work is actually priced.

Getting a quote as a stunt performer

If you want to see what cover could actually look like against your real working pattern, rather than a guess based on the job title alone, you can get life insurance quotes through an FCA-authorised broker who can describe your stunt work accurately to insurers and compare how different underwriters treat it. Whether cover is offered, and on what terms, always depends on individual underwriting — your age, health, smoking status and the specific detail of the stunts you perform — so nothing is guaranteed until an application has been assessed, but a properly presented case from a registered, working performer is very rarely turned away outright.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Life insurance underwriting for stunt performers works the same way across the whole of the UK: insurers assess the same detail — type of stunt work, frequency, registration and experience, claims history — wherever the applicant is based, because underwriting rules are set nationally by each insurer rather than regionally. UK film and television production, and the stunt performers who work on it, are spread across all four nations, and the industry's safety and registration framework applies wherever a production is shot. What can differ slightly is which insurers are most active in placing specialist entertainment risk for applicants based in a particular nation, which is another reason a broker working across the whole UK market tends to find the most competitive outcome.

Frequently asked questions

Is being a stunt performer a dangerous job?

Yes, in the sense that the job is built around falls, fire, fights and vehicle work that would count as hazardous in any context. It is also a tightly risk-assessed and choreographed profession, run under formal health and safety planning with a registered stunt coordinator on every sequence, rather than improvised risk-taking — real hazard, managed deliberately rather than left to chance.

Will being a stunt performer affect my life insurance application?

Almost certainly, yes, but rarely with an outright refusal. Because stunt work is both your job and the kind of activity insurers usually ask about separately as a hazardous pursuit, it tends to be underwritten directly and thoroughly. Most working stunt performers are offered standard or loaded terms; a flat decline for the occupation alone is uncommon when the case is placed with an insurer who understands the industry.

Will my policy exclude death or injury that happens while performing a stunt?

It depends entirely on the insurer, not on a fixed industry rule. Some price the full occupational risk into a loading and pay out for death from any cause, including one arising on set. Others offer cover with a specific exclusion for death directly caused by stunt performance, while covering every other cause in full. Both approaches genuinely exist in the market, which is why comparing insurers rather than accepting a single quote matters — a broker who places this kind of risk regularly will know which insurers take which approach before you apply.

How many stunt performers die each year in the UK?

There is no official government figure for this. HSE publishes injury and fatality data by broad industry sector, not by individual job, and specialist screen performance does not sit inside any of those sectors as its own category. What is well documented is the pattern rather than a number: the work involves genuine physical hazard by design, and the industry manages that hazard through registration, coordination and formal risk assessment on every production rather than through informal practice.