Training Event Insurance

[Mesterh]

You know what I wish sometimes that some of the insurance bods who must be members of this site and advertise would chime in and set us all straight as to the ins and outs of what we are covered for and what we need to do to be covered for every situation.

 

We can then choose were we want to cut corners:sneaky2:

 

I would say that Rupe seems to have it sorted , but just to make sure........

[Rupe]

I hope I'm wrong and just taking my nit picking too the limit. Genuinly sub contractign out work to companies who provide all the stuff for the job must be ok surely? But I think if the companyh subbing it out are actually satelite installers (just my example) then they would find it difficult to prove that they knew what they were doign when passing on the contract.

 

Remember that by definition sub-contract means that the original company are still part of the agreement from the client and therefore the first port of call in the event of something going wrong.

 

The only 100% way to be sure is to allow the sub contracting company to deal direct with the client, therefore you are stepping outside of the contract. You could still be financilly rewarded though but that would be a seperate arrangement, and quite legal. The client would take responsibility in deciding whether or not to go with the company you suggested, whereas in a sub contracting scenario you have not allowed the client to be involved in that decision.

 

I would like to hear it directly from an insurance company though.

 

Not much rigging jobs coming up. Have been doing lots of Poplars recently but none of them were particularly interesting/difficult/complicated.

[ukminch]

Yer would be nice to here it from the horses mouth. But I think as long as you can show you've shown reasonable steps to ensure things go right you should be ok.

 

I'd be grateful if you'd give me a shout if you do get any decent jobs come up.

 

Rob

[Charlieh]

A while ago, I was asked to give a few day's hedgelaying training for a local authority. It was on one of their sites, they were promoting the course, booking people on and taking their money, providing tools; my job was to turn up on each day and teach, for a day rate. It was non-vocational, inexperienced trainees and using only handtools.

 

In this case, who should cover the insurance, me or the local authority?

 

I have recently had a similar issue, basically it depends if your happy that the la will take the wrap if someone swings a hedge hook badly and hits themselves, or will they try and say you cant of taught them the correct method, I decided i would want the cover rather than being on someone elses

[Rupe]

Yer would be nice to here it from the horses mouth. But I think as long as you can show you've shown reasonable steps to ensure things go right you should be ok.

 

I'd be grateful if you'd give me a shout if you do get any decent jobs come up.

 

Rob

 

Yes I agree, and for the record I don't think you or any of us are not doing the right thing. I don't think we should be more insured, I wish we could all be less insured and just not worry about it.

 

We just need to insure (ensure) that we don't screw up in the first place.

 

Reasonable steps is what its all about!

 

Will bear (or is it bare) you in mind if we get anything good.

[Quickthorn]

Thanks for the input.

 

In the end, I told them that I would get the cover required (£300 - minimum premium, equal exactly to the amount I'd quoted for the training), but it would be added to the invoice; by this time, I'd already spent a day or two on visits, letters, advice, etc, with no income to show for it, so I didn't feel that inclined to give up a further weekend to do the training for £0 profit.!

 

They decided not to go ahead with the training.

[Arbocop]

The odd thing with insurance is it depends who you ask. those nice people at the tax office will tell you that any subbie, be them bonafida or labour only must have their own insurance as part of their proof of self employed status.

 

One assumes quckthorn already carries some insurance, say public liability, and you may add a training descrption on to that, but an extra 3oo for that seems a lot, especially if you are very specific with the addition ie if you spell out what you will teach.

 

if however you were designing the cource conten, delivery and mesuring of outcomes your self (whitch it sounds like you were) you would be well advised to carry profesinal indemnity. the PL is if someone herts them selves, eg cuts finger, the PI is if you teach them somthing dangerouse (or miss it out ie look out for power lines and they go and fry them selves at a later date)

 

we all know insurance can be crippelining, and it seems that because of some high profile accidents during training in ecent years the cost keep going up.

 

one would say the council coule have chosen to add you to cover eliments of your teaching to their policy, but ultimatly the obligation is with you to have insurace against secondary claims.

 

this does happen and i was an expert witness in just such a case last year, the instructor as it terns out was not covered by his insurance as he had not declare things correctly and he found himself almost bancrupt.

 

the short answer is just make sure you are covered for exactly what you do, have a good broker and make sure you negosiate with them and give them loads of info so they can get the best deal.

 

the down side is that people loose out to great experiance due to burocracy. you could consider joining LANTRA or BTCV and running such cources through them??

 

kev

[Quickthorn]

Thanks for the input, kev. What you say puts it in a slightly different light.

 

My insurers are quite specific about business descriptions on my policy, and training isn't included. I'm pretty much a one man band, and often fall foul of the minimum premium thing. That £300 would have covered me for 10 days, but not much use if I only get 2 days work per year.

 

The easiest thing for me is to not do training; I don't like it anyway. The only trouble is that, the list of things I no longer do because of insurance costs is growing...

[john@arbtech]

That's what I thought, Ian. If they were arranging the course and taking the profit, I would've thought insurance would have been down to them. They didn't see it like that. At the very last minute, they told me they wanted me to carry the insurance can. The extra premium would have been £300..exactly the amount I was being paid to do the training !!

 

Become lantra approved and they pay the insurance