The What, Why, How and Win of Insured Prize Promotions

Want to spice up your golf tournament with a hole-in-one contest for a brand-new Hummer or a swanky four-bedroom house without worrying about the cost? How about splitting a million-dollar prize with a lucky donor at your next special event — knowing someone else will be picking up the tab?

If you’ve ever wondered how some organizations — and their sponsors — can risk the expense of giving away huge prizes, then welcome to the world of content and promotions insurance -- a powerful tool for building awareness, developing sponsorship packages and raising additional funds.

WHAT IT IS
If you’ve played in a fundraising golf event that featured a hole-in-one contest for a brand new car, you’ve probably seen contest and promotions insurance in action. Rather than risk handing over the keys to a new vehicle, car dealers frequently purchase hole-in-one contest insurance. Simply put, they pay a small premium, which is a fraction of the vehicle’s actual cost, and if a player aces the target hole, the contest and promotions-insurance company pays for the prize.

But contest and promotions insurance isn’t limited to putting contests, million-dollar fundraising shoot-outs or hole-in-one contests. These days you can insure almost anything involving a risk, at nearly any location, based on three things: the cost of the prize you give away, the probability of the event occuring and the number of attempts made to win the prize. The best part? When the event occurs, the promotions company pays for the prize.

WHY INSURE?
Why consider an insured prize contest? One of the top reasons is that the allure of the big prize is hard to beat when it comes to giving people an additional incentive to participate in your campaign. Along with increasing participation, these kinds of big prize promotions also are effective in capturing headlines and generating media attention. It’s amazing how the addition of a big prize, when placed on a press release or public-service announcement, captures more attention from the general public, and, more importantly, the media. Your poker run, duck race or chuck-a-puck contest suddenly takes on a new sense of urgency when a million-dollar prize is up for grabs.