Insurance

General discussion
DaveWalsh
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:37 am

Re: Insurance

Post by DaveWalsh » Fri Feb 24, 2017 9:42 am

Mother! I didn't know you were watching this debate from up there. How did you hack that guy's email account ?
Steady though, solicitors do do vitriol, and nastiness, and we routinely mangle the facts, so its bad for my street cred letting on I don't!
David

Alan Horner
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2013 6:22 pm

Re: Insurance

Post by Alan Horner » Fri Feb 24, 2017 12:37 pm

I pinned my colours to the mast some time ago on this matter - so I'm not going to dwell here as there is continued excellent on-line the debate.

I can say that the East Coast Club took the plunge with insurance in 2016 and have renewed again for 2017.
We only went as far as insurance protection for the Club, It's officers and Trip Leaders incl public Liability.
in 2017 there was a change of insurance underwriter - some changes to the policy and we have had to do some
work to get clarifications from the insurer. we are happy enough now.

To emphasise we didn't go down the Personal accident road - Some but not all our members are also CI members
and for us it's quite tricky to police and impossible to enforce that all our club members should be CI members. eventhough we are affiliated to CI - yes I agree here with ISKA Committee in that it's a subject which needs more clarification
For ISKA members - maybe we should take this one step at a time.

Anyhow back to the Thorny issue of the day

So here is our experience thus far.
has our Club Kayaking Trips been impacted - No - Not directly.
but YES - indirectly.
The club had to get it's focus together and look at the safety guidelines and tighten these up a bit.
By and large we have been able to ensure the safety of our members and working within the insurance
guidelines on ratio etc is not impossible.

for example we have a forecast of SW F6-9 winds for saturday Feb 25th
I will be taking the club trip.
I have some back-up from other trip leaders and experienced club paddlers
I will limit our risk to these high winds of course so that the safety of the paddlers is maintained
(ie. Enclosed waters only - no open sea)
The insurance company executives might have heart attacks if the thought we were doing stupid things in horendous weather - but as has been stressed above - you have to work within safety, margins of risk etc etc
these are the main limiting factors NOT the Insurance.



TRIP LEADERS
I can only say that we have had a large increase in the number of paddlers putting their names forward
to train and get experience as a Trip leader. I stress that this training is done within the club by it's experienced paddlers and with outside providers. The qualification is done within the club - ie. we decide when the person is ready to undertake the trip leading under their own steam after a period of leading club trips under supervision .

This new volunteer spirit is a marked difference from before where we had to rely on a small core number of experienced paddlers who let's face it are not getting any younger. For many years it has always been difficult to get people to put their names forward.

I believe the concept of liability weighed heavily on some shoulders enough for them to say to themselves
"I don't want to take responsibility - I don't want that risk"

For ISKA
There is a difference in it's structure and reason to exist.
It's different from a club with regular weekly meets.
there are 6 or 7 weekend meets + symposium to cater for in any one year

The "Association" caters for the sea paddling public on these events
and will typically include ISKA members and non-members

I think it's important to remember that one of ISKA's main functions is to "Promote Sea Kayaking" and "Encourage it's development". So we the membership should be supportive of this aim.

I see the insurance step as a positive one for the association.
Yes there needs to be a re-focus as to how the association works with it's members and present's it's Meets
but for the ordinary member on the ground there should not be any major differences.

However for the ISKA committee and any volunteers taking on the Meets
they should feel comforted that ISKA is taking better care of their needs and concerns
and indeed alongside that is boosting the numbers of paddlers getting training etc,.

I know that there are many ISKA spawned "Clubs" and less formal groups of friends paddling outside of the ISKA meets
I don't think this debate impacts the way their organise in their local area.
Other than perhaps to encourage them towards taking some extra training through a bursary scheme

Good luck to the committee with this issue and I hope that all members will respect the democratic outcome
no matter which way it goes

Alan

fionatrahe
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:37 am

Re: Insurance

Post by fionatrahe » Fri Feb 24, 2017 5:46 pm

Re whether your house insurance PL can cover you for incidents on the water - it turns out mine doesn't,they just found an exclusion for water-sports that they hadn't seen last week :( Call me cynical, but.... I can't help wonder if that got added because I asked the question.
So I'm sourcing another policy for when my renewal comes around. A wiser way to approach it may be to just request your policy documents and read the exclusions yourself. I know of at least one person who has confirmed directly with their insurance provider that they are covered.

Have I mentioned insurance and wiggle room and small print before ??

iskacommittee
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:37 am

Re: Insurance

Post by iskacommittee » Fri Feb 24, 2017 7:13 pm

The ISKA committee did ask for legal advice and received the following advice verbally:
  • Even if a person signs a waiver, other people still have a duty of care to that person.
  • If somebody fails to fulfill their duty of care to a person they may be found to be negligent even if that person has signed a waiver.
  • Signing a waiver can reduce the risk of claims of negligence but not remove it.
Although we subsequently received conflicting advice in relation to the value of insurance, we never questioned this advice--until now. We will investigate this further.

It was suggested within the committee that the text of the waiver should be put to the members. This was not acted upon as the focus of our discussion at the time was on insurance.

Regards,

John

DaveWalsh
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:37 am

Re: Insurance

Post by DaveWalsh » Fri Feb 24, 2017 9:39 pm

Alan’s fair-minded account of the East Coast transition to and experience of Leader’s Insurance is as welcome as it is gobsmacking. I hope he isn’t courtmartialled back at HQ. The insurance lobby up to this seems to have been influenced (I hope I am not being unfair here) by the attitude that might be (fairly I hope) set out as being – “we did it, we have it, we’ve no issues, what’s your problem?”

Alan acknowledges the elephant in the room, that East Coast is a tight group, meets 100 times a year, everyone knows everyone, while ISKA is much the more laid back and informal, meets maybe 6 times a year. That is really important. For instance, if as Alan says, they can’t police things, what chance has ISKA?

When I was looking everywhere for the Waiver document I offered some (nameless) organisations many years ago, the subject of another input above, I eventually came upon a version of it (it went through various transitions – e.g. when Feckers were toying with children paddling, and again when they joined up with Espoir) attached to an email to Julian Haines, copied to Alan and CC and the like, dated Wednesday, June 25, 2008 wherein I told Julian that but for “the critical shortage of leaders and the mentoring scheme designed to alleviate the problem, I wouldn't have agreed to any availability this summer”. And that “I won't be volunteering in the autumn or winter” but I would “consider my enthusiasm levels next year, but I am suffering severe burn out. I want to paddle occasionally, spontaneously, and not because of a commitment given months before”. As Alan puts their anciens regime (afinn has got to me ….) “we had to rely on a small core number of experienced paddlers who let's face it are not getting any younger” – Alan ego te absolvo for you speak the truth, even if a little too plainly.

That is where East Coast were at, from about 2007, desperate for leaders and determined to do something about it. It was all hands to the pumps, the qualified (even the has-beens) mentoring the unqualified until the situation self-rectified. It was all then much as Chancer now describes his vision for ISKA 10 years later?

Gobsmacking ? That East Coast took 9 years (2007 – 2016) to move from having a leadership deficit, to fixing it, to getting leadership insurance, but there seems to be a heave to get the same thing achieved in ISKA in months? I entered all this believing somehow they were insured for yonks.

Even at that, I truly wonder, is ISKA hungering and thirsting for “insured qualified leaders”, even yet, in 2017, as East Coast was in 2007 ? I sense an absence of such a drive, never mind any impatience for progress. I have a funny feeling there are people in ISKA who like things just as they are?

Gobsmack eile? East Coast insurance seems different entirely to what I thought, but there you are.

I feel so positive about Alan’s positive contribution that I positively refrain in my last sentence from commenting on his last two sentences (NB for the deaf - note dog not barking) !

DWalsh

john.ruston
Posts: 39
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2014 11:51 pm

Re: Insurance

Post by john.ruston » Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:51 pm

Just for information please. How often have things happened that needed insurance - have there been lots of accidents - many claims - court cases ?? Are numbers available ? This whole liability thing is making me nervous. Use to be, I only had to worry about the weather.

brianmacmahon
Posts: 178
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:37 am

Re: Insurance

Post by brianmacmahon » Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:05 am

As far as I know John and I stand corrected if wrong there has never been a hint of litigation in the history of ISKA. You've made an interesting point though. I wonder has the insurance adopted by the likes of CI and CANI ever been tested.

Any of us who paddle regularly have had incidents over the years.
I've injured myself onshore. I've had boats badly damaged and various other little things.

Not every incident I've suffered have been my fault. However I accept that once I make the decision to sit into my boat and push off then there are inherent risks associated with that which I readily accept.

There is a huge onus on personal responsibility in sea kayaking.

I think that onus on personal responsibility could be formalised by using the waiver system.

My concern on making PL insurance mandatory amongst the association is how that could be possibly enforced.
Will we have someone at the meets to substantiate CI - CANI membership ? Or to check insurance documentation ? There would have to be a huge reliance on good faith.
Last edited by brianmacmahon on Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

conorsmith
Posts: 206
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:37 am

Re: Insurance

Post by conorsmith » Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:20 am

Even at that, I truly wonder, is ISKA hungering and thirsting for “insured qualified leaders”, even yet, in 2017, as East Coast was in 2007 ? I sense an absence of such a drive, never mind any impatience for progress. I have a funny feeling there are people in ISKA who like things just as they are?
Perhaps this is what the survey should really have been about?

Some will want insurance and you can always organise this yourself, regardless of what the survey says. Of this group, a proportion will go further and will want everyone else to similarly hold insurance. There are undoubtedly many more still who "like things just as they are".

If we had had this debate before the questionnaire was issued, we could have asked that question or included it as a second one. Or perhaps for balance this question should be put to us as well?

john.ruston
Posts: 39
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2014 11:51 pm

Re: Insurance

Post by john.ruston » Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:44 pm

Thanks for accepting my small tuppence-worth. I feared my question might be thought silly.
Brian, there was some testing of the BCU insurance, a long time ago when the enhanced cover (additional premium) offered New for Old on boats (I think they had to be less than 2 years old). Accounts went about of folk making sure their kit got replaced under this insurance often enough that the underwriters discontinued the offer after a fairly short while.
At that time the WCA house magazine Ceufad published reader's letters protesting about bullying on the water by the Insured - who appeared to take the view they were Invulnerable. The attitude complained of was "I can break my boat on you 'cos I'm insured and you can't touch me 'cos I'm still insured!" This would have been in the mid 80s and the scene of this bad behaviour was the dam release WW site near Bala (Canolfan Tryweryn) and at Llangollen
(more specifically on the Dee Tours).
Of course Sea Kayakers are characters of a very different stamp.

So, some at that time definitely saw Insurance as fostering bad or reckless behaviour. I doubt if the paper trail for this story still exists but I pray you might take my word for it.
John
(the other Ballycastle)

DaveWalsh
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:37 am

Re: Insurance

Post by DaveWalsh » Sat Feb 25, 2017 1:38 pm

Ballycastle John – different type of insurance, nothing to do with what we are at here.

Brian – your pal relying on Waivers to run a business is fooling himself. Waivers don’t work with “consumers”. People paying for a service, they have rights that cannot be released. Legislation and Eu Directives and things.

Alan – do East Coast have a waiver to reinforce their insurance cover?

DW

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