Public Liability Insurance

Thesaintterrapin

Along with my work colleague i am attempting to arrange a Bicycle ride in aid of a local Basingstoke Hospice.
The event is intended to take place for the majority of it's length upon a canal tow path.
The canal authority who own the towpath demand in order for the event to be given permission that public liability insurance to the sum of £10 million be obtained.
£555 was the sum quoted by the few insurance companies that would insure such a high sum.
As you can appreciate this is a ridiculously high sum, and would prove completely counter productive to take up.
However the simple truth is, no insurance, no event.
Therefore does anyone have any idea's or alternatives to help us?

mattymoo

How can they justify the £10m limit of indemnity? Most firms are happy to accept between £1m and £5m LOI. You could understand this if you say employed a welding contractor to work in your warehouse which had a £10m rebuild value. How much damage or injury could 2 people on bikes do on a tow path?

Your best bet would be to see if the hospice can arrange for you to be included in their PL covers. I've seen this done for some charity cases we used to underwrite were we would cover certain fundraising activities as well. I think we drew the line at parachuting though. It might cost the hospice an extra £50 on their premium but it will be easier to cover.

Out of interest, the canal authority - is it British Waterways Board or a local authority?

PS: I just searched "public liability" on the BWB site. This document - http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/media/documents/BW_2_Event_Guidance_Notes.pdf suggest an LOI of £5m is needed.

dogbot

Local authorities and the like tend to have an insistance of £10m for things that go on on their land, but this is usualy related to contractors doing work for them - e.g. we just had a case of an insured builder who has taken on a contract to do some work on a pond for the council and we extended his LOI.

I think mattymoo's advice re trying to get the event covered by the hospice's policy is the best way to go (even at £5m), but worth trying to speak to someone more senior at the canal authority.

dacouch

They are talking about the Basingstoke Canal and it's part owned by Hampshire and Surrey County Councils.

I agree ask the Hospice about adding it to their cover of try a local business to ask if they will sponsor it.

You could try Ingham Underwriting for a quote but I would still expect the premium to be in excess of £300 http://www.ingham-insurance.co.uk/

Thesaintterrapin

The authority in question is the Basingstoke canal authortiy, an independent body.
They demand while we are cycling in Surrey an endemnity of £5m, raising to £10m as we cross into Hampshire.
I Have already spoken to the Hospice re getting covered upon their policy but they can't meet the £10m tag.
As for the canal authority, that is the figure and they can't budge.
We even came up with the solution of downgrading the event to a walk along the same route, but they still demanded exactly the same level of cover.
The only other alternative we possibly have is this.
I and the 15 or so people taking part all work for South West Trains, and we hope that maybe we could be protected under their liability insurance, of which must surely be vast.

ashburnham

dacouch wrote: »

You could try Ingham Underwriting for a quote but I would still expect the premium to be in excess of £300

As a broker, we use Ingham Underwriting for all requests of £10m cover (as they are the only company who we deal with that entertain such high levels of indemnity). What they do is provide two policies, a "Primary Layer" and an "Excess Layer". The "Primary Layer" is the first £5m (i.e. a normal public liability policy) and the "Excess Layer" is for any claim beyond the first £5m and upto a total of £10m.

In theory the Hospice could cover the first £5m under their existing policy (assuming that is their limit) and just take out an "Excess Layer" policy for this event. This would probably be the cheapest option but I guess it is doubtful they would do this for you but you never know.

If you have to arrange your own £10m policy then Ingham will only provide annual policies and as dacouch says, the premium will easily be a few hundred pounds so your quote for £555 will not be beaten by much, if at all.

I'm with everyone else here when I say that the £10m request is ludicrous, especially when it's for charity!!!