Mountaineering Ireland provides insurance for members - it is included in our individual membership fee and most of our clubs take Mountaineering Ireland insurance. Mountaineering Ireland insurance is mainly Civil Liability cover - this protects you if another person sues you (e.g. for negligence). Some Personal Accident cover is also included.
Mountaineering Ireland members can avail of specialist travel and activity insurance policies without having to join the BMC (British Mountaineering Council). After the United States, Ireland is the most litigious country in the world; a good reason to ensure that you have insurance cover for hiking, climbing and other outdoor activities.
This article is intended to give members an understanding of the insurance cover that is available through Mountaineering Ireland. We have tried to present the information in clear, non-technical language, hopefully we have succeeded!
So what do you get for your money?
Civil Liability covers you for damages and legal costs arising out of Third Party loss, injury or damage.
Personal Accident regardless of who or whom is responsible, insurers agree to pay a stated amount in the event of one of a list of injuries.
Civil Liability explained
Basically, liability insurance covers you for claims made against you for third party injury or damage caused. It protects you (and your assets) if somebody takes you to court - for example if you dislodge a rock causing injury to somebody else and that person sues you.
Civil Liability is a very wide wording that includes Public Liability (injury or damage to third party property or persons), Professional Indemnity (Errors and Omissions e.g. providing advice, even simple route advice or failure to act), Directors’ and Officers’ Protection (cover for bad decisions whilst acting as an executive of a club or association without this personal assets could be at stake, a separate limit of up to £1 million per period applies) Libel and Slander (if clubs or individuals are sued for unintentional libel/slander e.g. emails, published material and websites) and all other matters under Civil Law. The usual limit of cover under Mountaineering Ireland's Civil Liability policy is £5,000,000 stg for any one occurrence.
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Personal Accident explained
Personal Accident cover provides you with a fixed benefit if you are unfortunate enough to suffer a permanent injury while engaged in one of the activities covered by our policy. Mountaineering Ireland's Personal Accident policy also covers injuries sustained while traveling to or from an insured activity in Great Britain or Ireland.
The benefit for permanent disability or total loss of limbs, eyes, speech or hearing is €73,655. This does not necessarily require the physical loss of the limb (e.g. - severance) it also covers loss of use. The main thing that is covered under this policy is "Permanent and total disablement from your employment for which you are fitted by education/training/knowledge". The Personal Accident policy also includes €736 dental benefit for dental expenses if you damage your teeth. There is a €74 excess for dental claims (i.e. you pay the first €74). There is death benefit under Mountaineering Ireland's PA policy of €7,000 and Medical Expenses sustained in a claim detailed above. There is no cover for recoverable injuries such as broken limbs.
What activities are covered?
Hillwalking, rockclimbing, rambling (including road walking), backpacking, bouldering, fellrunning, scrambling, Alpinism and all other recognised aspects of mountaineering. Additionally, activities such as downhill skiing, ski mountaineering, mountain biking, canyoning and caving are covered, provided the activities are non-competitive and not the main activities of the club.
This cover is on a worldwide basis, but it should be pointed out that your Mountaineering Ireland insurance is not travel insurance - it doesn't cover you for baggage loss, medical expenses, cancellation etc.
Exclusions
· Commercial activity, professional guiding and instruction.
· Persons under the age of three or over the age of 80 are excluded from Personal Accident cover.
· Persons aged 70 -75 were previously excluded from Personal Accident cover but now have 50% benefit, eg £25,000 cover.
· Personal Accident claims arising from sickness/illness (as opposed to accidental injury which is insured), HIV, drugs, etc.
· Exclusions under the Civil Liability cover include any accident involving a motor vehicle, injury to employees and the usual war and nuclear clauses (full details available from Mountaineering Ireland).
Reporting an incident
All incidents involving injury or damage to an Mountaineering Ireland member or a third party must be reported to our brokers (Perkins Slade) within 21 days. This is a requirement under the Civil Justice System in the UK (our insurers are UK based). If you, or your club, are involved in any incident that could lead to a court case, play safe and report it immediately. In the case of a possible liability claim, the incident must be notified to the insurers by the party likely to be sued (e.g. the club, leader etc.) rather than the injured party. With Personal Accident claims the injured party is the claimant and they should report the incident to the insurers.
In the event of a claim: You must report every claim and any incident that is likely to give rise to a claim in the future. Please contact Perkins Slade Ltd on (+44) 121 698 8040 and complete the necessary report / claim form as soon as possible to avoid prejudicing your claim. A copy of your notification must be forwarded to the MI office.
The insurers state that no admission, offer, promise or indemnity must be made by the Insured in the event of a claim. Do not admit liability; do not make an offer or promise to pay.
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Negligence
While it is advisable to report all incidents to the insurers, it is useful to know what an injured party would need to prove to succeed in suing you for negligence. There are three stages to this:
1. The injured party must prove that you owed them a duty of care. You owe a duty of care to any person who could foreseeably be affected by your actions, and the standard of that care can vary for a host of reasons, eg your experience and the experience of the others involved. If you are in charge of minors you owe a greater duty of care - that of a responsible parent.
2. The injured party must show that the duty of care was breached.
3. The injured party must prove that actual injury, loss or damage arose from that breach of the duty of care.
Each case will be different, for example there could be contributory negligence - where the injured person is partly responsible for the injury (e.g. by not wearing their helmet). We should remember too that injuries in the mountains are not always the result of negligence - accidents do happen. Risk cannot be eliminated from mountaineering; it is there at some level in every aspect of our activity. Hillwalking and climbing activities are rooted in a spirit of self-reliance, and with current concerns about liability, safety, insurance etc it's easy to lose sight of that personal responsibility.
Including Mountaineering Ireland's participation statement in your membership form or club newsletter is a useful way of reinforcing this: "Mountaineering Ireland recognises that hillwalking, climbing and rambling are activities with a danger of personal injury or death. Participants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions and involvement."
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Insurance for clubs
Our insurance scheme is on a compulsory basis, therefore Clubs that opt for Mountaineering Ireland insurance must pay a premium for each of their members, not just the committee, leaders etc. If we were just to insure those most likely to be sued, the premium would be much higher and we would be placing an unfair burden on voluntary leaders. Besides, any member could cause an accident, e.g. by leaving a gate open allowing animals to stray onto the road. If a club does not declare all its members to Mountaineering Ireland, the declared members are insured on an individual basis but the club itself has no insurance against liability, leaving the undeclared club members uninsured and personally vulnerable to a claim.
As well as walking and climbing, other club activities such as fund-raising and social events are covered by your Mountaineering Ireland insurance.
New members are insured from the day they pay membership to the club, provided that the club clearly records the date of payment (e.g. by using a receipt book) and that the money and member's details are passed on to the Mountaineering Ireland within 4 weeks.
Mountaineering Ireland clubs that have their own insurance policies are advised to check the limit of indemnity on their liability cover - awards of over £5 million have been made abroad, and others are pending. You should also check if you have Public Liability or the wider Civil Liability cover, in particular check if you have cover for member-to-member liability (this is one of the benefits of our Civil Liability policy).
If re-considering your insurance options, bear in mind that if there is a claim against your policy, Mountaineering Ireland will be in a better position to support and advise you if you have taken Mountaineering Ireland insurance. Any clubs that currently have no insurance are strongly advised to consider taking out insurance. Where school or university mountaineering clubs are operating under the parent body's insurance they should check that they have adequate cover for their activities.
Contact details
If you have any queries on Mountaineering Ireland's insurance cover please email info@mountaineering.ie
Mountaineering Ireland 's insurance brokers are: Perkins Slade Ltd., 3 Broadway, Broad Street, Birmingham B15 1BQ, UK. Phone: (+ 44) 121 698 8000, facsimile: (+ 44) 121 625 9000
Footnote
This article is intended to give assistance to clubs and members in understanding the insurance cover that is available through Mountaineering Ireland. We have deliberately tried to use clear, non-technical language. This article is not intended as a legal interpretation of the Mountaineering Ireland's insurance scheme and should not be used as such. For this purpose, reference should be made to the insurance policies themselves, which are available from the Mountaineering Ireland's Office. Thanks to Perkins Slade Ltd and David Walsh for their assistance with this article.
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14 August 2010
11 September 2010
16 September 2010
17 September 2010
18 September 2010
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+353 1 625 1115
