A family-owned Australian travelling circus has been forced to part with its performing lions and monkeys in order to secure a public liability insurance policy, allowing it to carry on operating.

Stardust Circus owner Janice Lennon says she has always been able get a renewal until this year when suddenly not a single insurer or underwriting agency was willing to insure the business.

“No reasons at all were given,” Ms Lennon told insuranceNEWS.com.au today. “They just said that they weren’t doing it.”

Pen Underwriting was the only one that came back to her broker, Bluewell Insurance Brokers, but on the condition that the six lions and four monkeys were excluded from the cover.

Ms Lennon says she accepted the terms and conditions set by the underwriting agency as the circus “needs to keep operating.” She says the policy from Pen Underwriting insures the circus and its other performing animals including ponies and dogs.

insuranceNEWS.com.au has reached out to Pen Underwriting for a comment.

Industry sources say the experience of Stardust Circus is not a surprise as the public liability insurance crisis facing amusement and leisure operators has worsened amid a further deterioration in risk appetite from capacity providers.

Premiums and excesses have shot up with more onerous restrictions included in contracts.

“Circus has just been a big red line, it’s part of the problems we are facing with the leisure industry as a whole," a leisure and amusement broker, who did not want to be named, told insuranceNEWS.com.au today.

“It has been very difficult for any kind of leisure entertainment businesses.”

The broker says he is getting dozens of calls every week from leisure and amusement owners desperately looking for public liability insurance renewals but there is little he can do given the state of the market.

“Things that we could get cover for a year or two ago from multiple insurers now seem to have either no options or very limited options,” he said. “And I can’t do anything. I feel so sorry that I can’t help.”