Trail Build/club Insurance……………..

Any recommendations ? It looks like we can do events using BC, but for trail work………………?

This (below) is from a broker trying to help us.

I have gone to all my markets for this insurance and due to various reasons I have listed below I have not been able to get a quote from them I am afraid. I can only suggest the British cycling association as on their website they do offer non-profit for clubs insurance and may be better suited for you.

The reasons have been as follows:

1 Due to the maintenance work
2 Due to the nature of the sport and the courses that they ride
3 Due to the events and races

I went to four insurers who were unable to accommodate this for you I am afraid three of them where charity ones and one was a sports but they do not provide any cover in respect of racing and would not do the liability for maintenance work so I have come to a dead end as it is not a general market product.

Just bumping this one up………….Surely someone has insurance for trail work?

Our group is covered by the landowners insurance which in our case is Hampshire County Council. Where are you building? On private or public land?

Hi switch, pm me and I’ll have a look for you (own a small insurance brokers).

Do you know who the broker approached?

Our group is covered by the landowners insurance which in our case is Hampshire County Council. Where are you building? On private or public land?

It is on Forestry Commission land………………they require us to have our own insurance for trail building/public liability.

Hi switch, pm me and I’ll have a look for you (own a small insurance brokers).

Do you know who the broker approached?

I can’t get that info at the moment, but will email you later with it.
Ecclesiastical were approached as they insure Keilder trail reavers (I think), but they wouldn’t insure us for some reason.

We are fully covered and work on FC land, PM me your e-mail and I’ll put you in touch with Pete who know about that side of our set up.

http://www.timbermtb.org/website/home

Cheers Moe…………I can’t work out how to PM so will try an email later. I think our chairman TROG MTB was going to contact TIMBER for the same info, I just thought I’d open it up to this forum for a wider selection. It’s a bit odd, as both our groups work under the same FC office.

I can let you know that BC can’t help if you’ve not already tried them. I was looking in to this recently for Ride Sheffield for some potential work on FC land and they told me that they could not cover the trail work for a club joining (it may have been different for an existing club but I doubt it from what they told me).

We (SingletrAction) work on FC land and are currently “self-insured” by them. We used to be covered by a policy underwritten (IIRC) by Zurich and very kindly paid for by FC. However, that policy is no longer offered, indeed I think we only managed to keep it on some legacy basis and this too ran out.

I believe FC have attempted to find insurance but it was proving difficult for them. How they expect volunteer groups to sort this out is a bit perplexing.

I would be interested to know how Timber cover themselves (here or offline 🙂

I do wonder why there is such a concern about it. As far as I understand we had to provide cover for third parties if injured whilst we were working. Given we’re only using hand tools or very small plant (at most a whacker or power barrow) I wonder why insurers are so averse? Any earthworks or Civils contractor is going to carry contractor’s all risks and, AFAIK, that’s widely available and competitively priced.

Insuring the trail for accidents when it is in use wouldn’t seem appropriate as that would really be the responsibility / covered by the land owner / manager. Local authorities, private schools and sports centres are all surely insured and many activities must be as risky if not moreso than folks riding around on bikes. I accept FC is (or was) covered by Crown Indemnity, IIRC.

I guess the only useful thing out of that wondering is to make sure you’re asking (or are being asked to provide) for the “right” insurance i.e. I would expect it to be for third party (or even personal) injury / damage whilst building or (much less likely) for use of trail when finished.

You could also ask some of the people behind the trails in the woods at Pickering. I forget the group’s name by Mike Hawtin is a contact who can be reached via FB.

IIRC PMBA has trail builder insurance

email the group to ask for the details

Cheeky Monkey

What you’ve written could have come from us 🙄 …….. exactly………except for the first sentance.

It is on Forestry Commission land………………they require us to have our own insurance for trail building/public liability.

I always thought FC self-insured, simply because due to their size they can’t get this type of insurance.

We have a similar situation, we are going to be building and maintaining trails on Private land, So we are getting insured during trail building and public liability for the trails once we have finished. For this reason, we are only insuring three trails as this keeps the cost down. The landowner is paying for the insurance.

The insurer is Tennyson, it used to be offered through Zurich, but they referred us to Tennyson.

Things to think about:

1:Is this insurance for trail building only(will liability revert to the landowner once a trail has been built)

2: Tennyson as far as I know will not insure Events, such as races.

Point one is important to clarify before speaking to Tennyson. If you are only insuring for trail building only, I’d imagine it would just be a public liability insurance like the professional trail building companies have when building trails, if you are to insure the trails for public liability after you have built them, insuring only a few “official” trails will keep the costs down.

I have looked at your website, Direct them to your website and point out you method statements/risk assessments, any “professional” pictures of you building or maintaining trails, they look at our website and it put them more at ease with us.

I can presume your trail building org is “formalised” with a bank account/secretary/treasurer etc? If not, Tennyson may ask you to do this, but what they need to see is some “recognised expertise” when it comes to trail building.

Sonor

We only need insurance for trail work and tools. Mostly hand tools but we do also have a strimmer and a vibroplate compacter. £5,000,000 public liability

The trail has been there for years but only approved about 4 years ago and way-marked for just over a year. The FC are happy with our trail management with regard to safety and quarterly inspections, as such, the use of the forest by the public is covered by them as ” self insured”.

The last riding event we did was covered by British Cycling.

Within the FC a number of options exist. At Chasetrails we are currently covered by the FC for our work. Our main volunteers / coordinators have entered into Volunteer Agreements which allow us to treated (for insurance / liability purposes) as employees. This does however mean that we act as employees in terms of receiving instructions etc. Whether these options are availble to other groups is a matter of their respective FC regional teams view on the policies as they will be required to have their own view and process of implementation which may differ from our particular circumstances.

It has been tentatively suggested that in the future we could consider taking out our own insurance which would free us of some of the burden that the FC are required to impose upon us. We haven’t even started to look into it and as Chair of the group I’m concerned about the personal responsibility that such a commitment could require.

I’d be keen to get a bit of a discussion group going on this away from the public forms if anyone else is interested??

st – yes i’d definitely be interested in continuing this and finding out what the options are/continuing the discussion. My email address is in my profile.

To me it’s poor that BC won’t cover this kind of work.

Our main volunteers / coordinators have entered into Volunteer Agreements which allow us to treated (for insurance / liability purposes) as employees. This does however mean that we act as employees in terms of receiving instructions etc.

All our volunteers have signed an agreement with the FC under the same terms, but we still have to provide our own insurance. As long as we let them know the work plan and they are happy with it, we get on with the rest ourselves, with no interference from them.

It looks like it’s worth us approaching the FC to see if we can come under them for insurance, leaving just the tools and equipment to insure ourselves.

Even with your own insurance, you would still have the “burden” with regard to Risk Assesments, Method Statements and the usual health and safety requirements, which in my view is what’s needed to keep things professional and safe.