LIABILITY INSURANCE
By John Devitt RRCA Montana State Rep
Last year during a weekly group run in Florida one of the club runners was going through his Ipod play list and ran through a red light at an intersection. The rest of the group stopped for the light. He never knew what hit him and was killed instantly.
The RRCA does not ban headphones, but along with babyjoggers, dogs, etc. they strongly recommend against them. As was stated, you have to look at the reality of the situation and people are going to do those things. Removing someone from a race might create a worse liability and PR situation. Still, you need to recommend against them.
The RRCA convention first seminar is the insurance seminar presented by Terry Diller who is a runner, himself and is the owner of Star Insurance that is under K&K Insurance. Anyway, he is the one who is responsible for our RRCA insurance policy. Usually his talk is more of a question and answer session. This time he had a lot to say.
The cost of our liability insurance is determined by the number of claims that are brought against it. Running, by and large, is a pretty safe activity and our cost are kept down by due diligence. So far they are holding the line on cost. However, in our current economic climate, more lawsuits are expected to be brought forth. Because of this, he thought that it would not be too long before the RRCA will have to go to a 2 million dollar policy. This will increase the overall premium by 15 to 25%. For us in Montana that are already required to pay 2 mil insurance, this will be a BIG reduction in our cost!
Last year I told about the woman who was ejected from a porta-potty, when wind and a low hovering helicopter caused it to turn over. The club did everything to try and pacify the women but to no avail. Her attorney waited until the last day that the law suite could be filed and delivered the subpoena could be delivered and served it at 10pm to our former RRCA membership chairman. The reason, it was explained, was that bad record keeping could sway the court in the plaintiff’s favor. Lesson learned: keep good records.
A couple of other items mentioned were that home owners insurance will not cover timing and course equipment since this is considered business property. This insurance is offered through the RRCA. Also note that police, medical personal, and other professional people that you may be using are not covered by the RRCA insurance. They should be covered under their own professional liability insurance. And getting back to due diligence, you should get second party certificates in situations, for example, you are using a city park for your event. You would request one from the city just as they will request one from you. An example of this is what happened in a race a few years ago that finished in a city park. In another area of the park, not used by the event, a kid fell in the playground area, and the mother sued the RRCA for damages when the city told her that the event was responsible for the playground which it clearly was not.
Another situation that bankrupted a Ski Club was when the club used an online business to collect their membership dues. The on-line company made of with $100,000 of the clubs money. So it is important to do background checks on business that you do business with.
I hope that you find this informative and helpful in preparing for your events.
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