I need to pick up a policy (pretty quickly) for shooting events, mostly family parties and local school sporting events. Can anyone point me in the right direction (firms?) and what possible costs may be?
If you're looking for coverage for owned and rented equipment as well, give TCP a call. Great agents, good policies through Great American, starting at around $500 a year for $2 million in liability and several thousand dollars of equipment. It also covers incidental shooting of video. Payments are quarterly.
The $2 million is the kicker. Venues are requiring that much more and more often these days, and some competing brokers are still writing policies that only cover $1 million. Where that's the case, the "optional" extra $1 mil is often extremely expensive (in the case of Hill & Usher, it doubles the package price).
Another vote for TCP and Great American. Been a customer of TCP for four years now and their customer service is fantastic. I pay 615 a year and that includes all my gear, computers, hard drives, and 2 million dollar liability.