A motion picture or television production bonding company is really a specialized insurance company. Whereas the typical insurance company might insure your car or your life, these companies insure your production. But they don't protect the cast or the equipment. In fact they don't even insure you! But they do insure your investors, a bank, the distributor, a labor union, or anyone else who has a financial interest in the outcome of your production. They only insure for one thing: the completion of your film. So the bonding company should be properly called a Completion Guarantee Company.

Why Must I Have a Completion Bond?

It's not so much that you need to have a completion bond, but your financial backers may insist on it. For a fee and other conditions, the bonding company will provide a "bond" to anyone who has a financial interest in the film. Simply stated, if your production is not completed, the bonding company will either step in and finish the film, or your investors can redeem the bond for cash, (subject to numerous terms and conditions of course).

The bonding company does not guarantee the financial success of your film nor do they guarantee your film will be even watchable! All they guarantee is that the film will be completed with a specific cast and loosely-based on the shooting script. A bonding company representative once said that all they really promise is that "…there will be five, 35mm reels of film in two shipping containers with handles on the top."