Events and liability, what makes someone an ‘organiser’?

im surprised insurers have stipulated must have trackers, checkpoints etc – my experience is they are clueless and want you to follow some sort of “industry best practice” and risk assess and mitigate.

The insurers who are taking on some of these long-distance events seem to have enough experience of the format and options available to ask for these things now. I suppose that’s a step forward if you want to make a business out of racing or camping sportives. I don’t have much interest in getting into that sort of event management though.

Interesting, I’ve organised a fair number of events but never had an isolated policy for one event, rather a policy covering all our activities.   I wonder if another side benefit of Ltd co would be a general “public liability policy” which is aware of your general activities but doesn’t drill into every detail?  But all my events have alway been managed under the auspices of a “sport governing body” so they just expected us to follow their good practice guides.  I’m not sure how they would feel if your main event is outside the UK – certainly my company combined liability insurance covers product liability risks globally, it’s not cheap but is not actually as expensive as I expected.  I don’t know if it would, or would not, solve your EU rep problem.

The one year it happened with full cover was via the Ltd Co working as contractor to a larger events company who had an EU base, the Ltd Co had general PLI for that.

Being outside the EU with no Authorised Representative there makes it almost impossible to get direct cover via the Ltd Co only but the AR point could be resolved if someone wanted to go back down that road. Being outside established event norms and not being a staffed event also created questions for insurers. “What are you actually doing / insuring?”  “Just riding our bikes self-supported from a group start…?” “Is that an event?” .. and hence me thinking that somewhere in all this is a format and guidelines for an event that is not really an event. More of a happening, more easily managed and covered. But maybe not since it can look and sound like a kind of event.

@jameso if it helps I’m happy to liaise and organise a meet of some like-minded people who organise rides, there’s a few in the five valleys and surrounding area, might be good to share ideas, but i can’t help but think to be 100% you need solid legal advice.

Thanks Qwerty. Would be a good excuse to meet up. I’ve got a couple of potential ways ahead if this event was to re-start formally again, tbh I’m not sure if I can commit the time or resources though. Hence the low key nudge ideas. Happy to share resources and notes.