A Question of Club Insurance

[steveandhil]

I wish to pose a question, particularly to those involved in the management of sailing clubs and associations. I am a committee member of the Macwester Owners Association, a nationwide class association for the benefit of owners of CSJ Roy designed boats. We have no premises and communicate through a magazine. We meet throughout the year in regional rallies.

A question has been posed by our Commodore regarding what insurance cover best suits the Association. This also raised the question of what ‘duty of care’ the association has when members meet under the Macwester banner at local rallies. An example of ‘who is liable?’ is given in the following scenario –

Should a crew member slip and suffer injury boarding a boat from a pontoon, who would ultimately be responsible in any litigation for compensation? Is it the crew member, the boat owner, the pontoon owners, or the association, should the incident occur on a rally?

Following a ‘non-plus’ reply from the RYA, I have contacted both the Financial Services Agency and the General Insurance Standards Agency for advice. Surprisingly, neither will offer a satisfactory answer as to where responsibility lies in the question posed. I can only assume that they have no stated or similar cases to refer to. Their only advice appears to be to insure ‘just in case!’
 
Can I appeal to you for advice - what type of insurance do similar clubs/associations have?

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[Dave99]

Your post is very interesting as my cruising club has just had its AGM and there was quite alot of debate over whether the club should renew its RYA membership - from this came a response that it should not renew its insurance policy, which does not cover the club on the water. Since they have no club house the only other events are BBQs - the question over the insurance policy continues...are they wasting there money? On the water every boat has at least third party insurance, so why might any one seem to think the club was liable for anything. I would definitely be interested in your findings.

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[nordic_ranger]

Kip Cruising Club of which I'm Secretary is in an identical position to you.
I will be following your posting with great interest as we are a marina based club with no premises and like yourselves meet on a social basis.
I'm sure that the subject you raised could lead to an interesting can of worms should and accident occur leading to litigation and this could also lead to the demise of many clubs and associations who like ourselves do not have large funds.
Perhaps some legal eagle on this forum would be kind enough to advise on how the law stands on this matter.

Jim.

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[Shanty]

This sounds like the sort of thing that the RYA should be capable of providing some useful guidaance on. I am saddened, but not surprised to hear that they have not. I fear they have become so busy being the "governing body" and a "national authority" that they have no time left for mundane activities like providing advice to their members.


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[Trevor_swfyc]

Dave,
I spent many years on a committee and it is always those that have no duty of care or direct liability that come up with why do we have to .......
You mentioned a bar-b-cue so consider this you have organised an event, you have put it all in a news letter (in writing) the cruise will have a stop off at the rocks for a bar-b-cue. All is fine, nice day old Jim has supplied the bar-b-cue kids are playing ball. Jim gets impatient and decided to speed the up the bar-b-cue with a spot of petrol the ball hits his hand and the whole can drops onto the bar-b-cue.
You as the organiser immediatly have to contact the coastguard a helicopter is called to the incident and the injured are rushed to hospital.
Suddenly those that were previously saying why do we require insurance are asking why you cancelled it. Fortunatly you had more sense and kept it running both public liability and member - member cover.
Infact if a motion to cancel insurance that could leave you liable is passed at an AGM then resign immediatly.

Stay safe and stay covered.
All the best.
Trevor

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[LORDNELSON]

This is a question I have been thinking about recently. I help to organize rallies for a class
association. Some of us in the association have been concerned that should something go
pear-shaped during a rally, litigation might result. It seems to me there are two main concerns 1.
If litigation does take place, irrespective of the hope of a valid claim being made, who is going to
provide the money to counter the litigent? 2. What are the actual responsibilities/liabilities of the
association?

I believe that organising a rally does not result in the organisers incurring responsibilities for
accidents happening to crews on individual boats nor that other mishaps such as food poisening
at a rally dinner or a defective pontoon at an association chosen port can be laid at the door of the
organisers so long as they can be shown to have used reasonable care in choosing the restaurant,
port etc.

Each owner/skipper forming part of the rally has a duty of care in the way his boat (and tenders)
is/are operated (SOLAS etc) and needs to be insured for third part claims (as most of us are). In
addition I personally also take out Marine Legal Cover for £100,000 to, hopefully, assist in my
representation should claims be made against me (annual cost about £12). It seems to me
however that similar marine cover needs to be taken out by the association in order to be able to
contest claims against them.

I am not a lawyer and it would be good to have a legal type provide us with his views on this
subject.


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[l'escargot]

In your example the claim would be against whoever was negligent, which could be anybody or nobody. Just because something has happened does not mean there is automatically grounds for a claim.

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[Parsonsheath]

Forget who may or may not be liable, the bottom line is that it could cost you an arm and a leg to be represented, and the harsh fact is that even having raised that money and won the fight you may then be unable to get any of your money back.

In the old days when I did this sort of thing for a living I always pointed out that however confident I might be of getting judgement in the client's favour , there was then another set of proceedings to seek to recover the cash even if the Court had found on your behalf and awarded you costs.

Remember too that however small the firm you consult they are not immune from being sued, and the minimum they will be covered for is one million on each claim, then ask yourself why no one can afford to give specific advise!!!

No, payment of a premium may be an annoyance, payment of a judgement or legal bill could be disaster.



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[Novice]

This is very interesting. I am new to sailing, hence the user name, but I have had flying radio controlled model aircraft for a hobby for a long time now. Most flyers are members of a local club, most of which do not own their own premises, but rent a plot of land from a farmer or the council to fly from. Obviously, some kind of insurance is essential, as a model aircraft can travel at speeds of up to 200mph and weigh anything from 1 to 7 or more Kg, such that should it inadvertently strike a person or object, a lot of damage can result.

Most clubs in the UK are afiliated to the British Model Flying Association, who, as a part of the membership subscription provide the necessary insurances to both the afiliated club, and the individual flyers. The way it works in most cases is that the club subscription is say £50, of which £20 goes to the BMFA for insurance and other membership services (including a periodic newsletter and organisation of national teams to represent GB at international events etc) and the other £30 goes on paying the rent for the flying site and other club expenses.

So, drawing an analogy, IMHO, this should be a function of the RYA, who are the national body representing our hobby/sport/pastime. I have asked around for reasons to join the RYA, and have yet to find someone who can point to real benefits from membership. So I haven't joined. This thread gives me another reason not to.

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[Birdseye]

Its easy to criticise the RYA - we all do it at some time, me included. But we would be a lot worse off without them. Who do you think talks to Govt when questions of red diesel or vat come up? Who organised our national sailing squad? Who represents us with bodies like the Hydrographic office, or Trinity House (who, incidentally, are currently running a campaign to get light dues levied on pleasure craft). Who is currently representing us over offshore wind farms? And many other issues.

And when it comes to individual clubs in trouble, the RYA is there to help. One of my nearby clubs won a million pound claim against their landlord thanks to RYA legal support. Another lost a case - and the RYA paid half the legal bill.

The RYA runs the training scheme which ensures that we have much the best safety record of any major sailing nation.

The RYA are not good at telling people what they do, and most of us Brits are quite good at whinging! But in this case, its misdirected. The RYA could do better, but they deserve our support. And incidentally, I do not work for them.

PS Maybe the reason they are reluctant to give legal advice is because the situation is hypothetical, and the court judgment on the day would depend on the lawyers involved, the Judges mood and probably the phases of the moon. The Law is not predictable or clearcut in such areas.

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[Trevor_swfyc]

Further to your question and to a negative post regarding the RYA, can I direct you to the RYA website and more specific to a pda document that has a section covering your question press <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.rya.org.uk/images/uploaded/g6.b67a0e77-a85f-48d9-89a2-3561869c65c3.pdf>here</A> to download it takes 1 -2 minutes. Your interpretation of the contents and any action you take are for you and my directing you to this information does not imply any specific action is endorsed by me. It does however show that the information is available if you look in the right place.

Hope its useful.
Trevor

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