Insurance

Many of you may not know that our club has a liability insurance policy. This is an insurance policy to protect the club in case an accident occurs during a club event such as a ride or weekend trip. If one of the participants is involved in an accident, for example colliding with a pedestrian, our insurance would provide provide monetary protection in case of a settlement. Also if a ride participant were injured and wanted to sue the club, the policy would also come into effect. The club’s policy started about a decade ago when the League of American Bicyclists arranged to offer low-cost insurance through a carrier to its affiliate clubs, which we are. Prior to that we, like most bicycle clubs in the US, were coasting on a prayer and wishful thinking. Since clubs are hardly deep-pocket organizations, suing a club is unlikely to lead to a big payout. But litigants can go after individuals in the club, particularly officers, and it might end up being a costly decision. Keep in mind that even if you are a participant on a ride, that someone who is injured might implicate any of the other riders including you. The liability insurance policy is in place to handle those sorts of situations.

If you are a club member, you are covered by our policy on club rides and events. Technically you don’t even have to sign the club’s waiver to receive coverage although signing the waiver provides legal protection if an incident does occur, and of course there are other reasons to require a waiver and to sign it including emergency contact information in case of an accident and contact information of non-members (i.e. prospective members).

Our liability insurance is one of the two major ongoing, annual expenses running about $500 per year for our roughly hundred members and officers. (The other big expense is website hosting and related costs.) Your membership fee of $20 covers these expenses and without fundraisers such as Jock Sunday at the Lookout or donations we just break even (in a good year). One reason why the club doesn’t have to do more fundraisers is because of the incredible generosity of Jerome Thomere, who has been managing our website for 15 (!) years. Without the donation of literally hundreds of hours of his unpaid labor, we would have long ago had to go to a website developer/manager and that would have cost quite a bit more.

There are some things you should know about our insurance. First, it provides $1 million coverage per incident with a cap of $5 million per year. Second, it covers members and first-time participants on rides and events. If you are not a member either because you’ve lapsed or that you’ve never gotten around to joining, then our policy excludes you from coverage. The first time a non-member attends a ride, they are covered but after that they are not. If an incident were to occur, the club would be protected but you would be on your own in case you were named in a suit. Third, our policy also provides up to $10,000 per person per accident medical coverage. This takes effect after other insurance such as your personal health insurance. Fourth, the policy currently only covers road riding but no racing. Mountain biking, or riding on unpaved surfaces, is specifically excluded. By early next year the club will have an additional policy to cover dirt riding but until then we can’t officialy host mountain bike rides without exposure.

If you have been a ride leader or thinking of leading a club ride in the future, you should know about the Incident Report Form. Our insurance requires us to submit an Incident Report Form for accidents involving either bodily injury or property damage (there is a slightly different form for each type). These are currently available at the DSSF Yahoo! group in the Files area in the folder “Incident Report Forms for Insurance”. Ride leaders should download a copy and fill it out in case of an incident, and of course you should notify the Ride Coordinator or other club officer as soon as possible. If you lead a ride that has either a death or major injury, you must report that immediately to the carrier by their toll-free number, which is on the forms. I recommend that ride leaders carry a print copy of forms so that you can fill out the information on the spot rather than trying to remember details later on. At the very least you should access the electronic versions through your mobile phone. In the near future we should have copies up on the club website.