A community-owned LGBTQIA+ nightclub in Melbourne’s inner west has operated without public liability insurance for two years after its annual premium climbed from $1,000 to nearly $143,000 in less than a decade, according to an ABC News report.
Pride of our Footscray, located above a Vietnamese supermarket on Hopkins Street, has operated since 2018 as a cooperative of 200 shareholders. Owner Mat O’Keefe holds a 50% stake, with the remaining shares distributed among 199 others.
The club’s insurance costs remained modest until its liquor licence was extended to 3am in 2020, when the annual premium rose to $6,270. By 2022, it had jumped to $43,010. In 2024, the club’s broker approached 19 insurers seeking public liability cover – 18 declined outright. The one company that made an offer quoted $142,890, which O’Keefe said would have totalled $157,179 once loan costs were included.
“If someone hurt themselves in a serious way … we would be bankrupted overnight,” O’Keefe told the ABC.
With his landlord’s agreement, O’Keefe has continued operating uninsured. Venue manager Monique Anderson said the arrangement kept staff on “tenterhooks”, with the club maintaining three security guards and strict protocols to manage spills and hazards.
In 2023, the insurer for the building itself, WFI Insurance, also declined to renew the landlord’s policy. A company spokesperson cited “heightened risk exposures … including fire and electrical hazards, and potential for crowd density to impede fire response”. The landlord subsequently found a replacement insurer, with Pride of our Footscray covering the bulk of that cost.
The Insurance Council of Australia attributed the broader trend of rising premiums to growing claims costs and higher legal fees, noting in a statement to the ABC that “outdated laws are putting that cover further out of reach” for higher-risk industries, including live music venues.
The Australian Live Music Business Council told a federal parliamentary inquiry that a small number of large claims during the COVID-19 years had wiped out the premium pool across the entertainment industry. Council board member Andrew Bassingthwaighte said the consequence was that insurers had “basically said, ‘well, it’s too risky … we’re going to leave the market’.”
The federal government launched an inquiry into small business insurance last year; hearings began last week. Pride of our Footscray has made a submission calling for a government insurance scheme.
A newly established broker, Luma Insurance Brokers, which launched in 2025 and counts around 60 music venues among its 120 clients, recently invited O’Keefe to apply and told the ABC it expected to source a quote below $50,000.
Drag performer HollyPop, who has worked at the venue for four years, said a closure would cost her both income and a stage.
“Without places like this, I lose my income, I lose my spaces to perform,” she said.
The Pride of our Footscray case has also become a centrepiece of the Insure Good Times campaign, a newly formed advocacy association pushing for structural reform through the federal parliamentary inquiry. According to Beat Magazine, which reported on the campaign in February, the club’s insurance costs at their peak amounted to roughly $3,022 per week – or approximately $75 per trading hour – before wages, rent, or stock were accounted for.
The campaign is advocating for six key reforms, including a federal statutory insurance scheme modelled on New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corporation, a discretionary mutual fund for the live entertainment sector, and legislative changes compelling insurers to offer public liability coverage to compliant small businesses.
