Difference between revisions of "Insurance"

Revision as of 19:55, 23 October 2005

Conventions and there parent organizations will need insurance. Most conventions will need Property and Casualty polices (Some types listed below). Few will need Health and Life insurance. In general if the convention does not have employees, and is not dependent on one or a few people in limited partnerships then Heath and Life policies are not necessary.

It is of the utmost importance that you use a reputable agent, and have multiple read your policies each year to insure proper coverage. If you are the slightest bit unsure if you are covered for a risk, ask your agent preferably by email so you have a record of the response.

Before you get any insurance you need to ask the following questions:

1. What risks do I have? 2. How do I reduce my risks? 3. What is my potential losses? 4. What is the cost of insuring this risk? 5. What type(s) of insurance covers this?

Examples: (Some of these are extreme but they are intended to make you think about your risk situations)

1. * An attendee falls and breaks there leg.

• Common sense, don't run cable across the floor with out covering it. Crowd control, make sure the escalators are not over loaded.
• Medical expense, individuals loss of work, law suits, etc.
• Generally low costs, based on previous propensity of loss.
• A "General Liability" policy will cover most costs associated with an accident of this nature. If you don't have this you are probably in violation of your hotel contract, most require $1,000,000 per incident $3,000,000 aggregate.

2.* A staffer/ volunteers falls of the stage hurts themselves and damages the awards they where going to distribute.

• Stage Ninjas, Protected stage edge etc. (Note this example happened at con I worked at)
• The Medical expenses of the individual the costs of replacing the awards.
  • The individual may have health insurance that covers this, but it may also have high deductibles, or out of pocket costs, if it was a worse accident the health insurance company may try to claim that the responsibility falls on the organization.
• Generally low costs, based on previous propensity of loss.
• See "General Liability" (above) IMPORTANT: Make sure that volunteers are specifically listed in your policy, they are usually excluded.

(Will continue with the following later on today)

• The projector that was rented or borrowed was stolen.
• Weather causes the cancellation of the convention.
• The organization/ convention / board members / staffers / etc are sued for a lot of money, likely because of some other risk but not necessarily.
• The hotel the convention burns down the week before the convention.
• The organizations office/ storage has a fire, flood, etc.
• An officer of the organization empties the bank account and disappears.
• The cash drop from registration, sales table etc is stolen on its way to be counted and secured.