I just found out that RV Nuccio & Associates no longer provides liability insurance in NY state. The USCF was apparently not aware of this and to date has not made efforts to find a new insurer for USCF affiliates. I plan on researching other companies online, but if anyone has any info on this to save me some time I would appreciate a reply. I am the TD of NY chess club and my current policy runs out soon. Thank you.
Why on earth do you need insurance?
Do you own the building where you meet? It’s been documented that 98% of accidents at chess clubs are facility related: slips, falls, tables being knocked over, people falling into toilets.
Perhaps another 1% are due to spilled hot drinks or choking on food. Ban coffee and donuts and you should be ok. The remaining 1% are a result of international terrorism, which means the victims can sue the Bader Meinhof Gang.
Are you a lawyer? Do you hold chess boxing events?
Does your equipment fly through the air and strike young children in sensitive anatomical regions while their parents are outside having a smoke?
Angelo DePalma
Because some of those “free” facilities require that you have it. And chess is a combative sport; both parents, their kids and adults may do things that cause harm or injury like threaten to shoot someone for having an event on Sunday. Or an Officer may go ballistic and mention his gun and have to be impeached.
Or a parent may protest the pairings for his child or team. I wish the USCF and TLA would require a statement that the tournament was covered by Liability insurance: I would feel safer.
Ask the Penn State Board of Trustees. 
Liability insurance is no substitute for vigilance or zero tolerance for certain types of misconduct, but it’s a good thing to carry.
You cannot be serious. I don’t know what kind of places you frequent, what with parents unruly to the point of threatening players, club officers brandishing pistols, or crazed zealots protesting violations of the sabbath.
Is your club in Iraq?
I’ve attended 178 chess tournaments of various lengths in the last 13 years, approximately 45 Mondays per year and a couple of dozen off-site events. That’s a lot of chess. I’ve witnessed exactly four ugly “occurrences.” Two yelling matches, an idiot who insisted on using a computer during his games who was kicked out, and one old guy pooping all over the downstairs bathroom. None of these incidents resulted in physical violence.
And had it occurred I could not have possibly been held liable. I do not own the club, my name is not on any documents, the club does not own the building, and I know how to stay out of trouble. If something terrible were to go wrong I would simply call the police.
There is an infinitely higher chance of being careless behind the wheel of an automobile and causing grave injury or death, and not having enough liability insurance to cover the claim, than there is of being found liable in any kind of incident occurring at a chess club.
BTW I’ve also been involved in scouting, off-campus school activities, school trips, etc., and have never been required to take out personal liability insurance.
The larger tournaments probably do have insurance. But it would kill mom-and-pop organizations like ours, and chess in general.
BTW insurance protects you financially; it doesn’t make you safer. It didn’t protect you from robbery, it reimbursed you for your losses – minus what is probably a substantial deductible.
Speaking of which, I don’t mean to bust your you-know-whats but I’ve never heard of liability insurance covering burglary or robbery. Liability insurance covers mishaps resulting in physical injury or material loss as a result of positive action or negligence on the part of the entity taking out the policy.
E.g. The floor is wet, someone slips and hurts their back. Or someone at your club turns around abruptly and accidentally stabs someone with a sharpened pencil. Or the battery in a clock you supply leaks acid that burns someone.
Liability insurance protects you if, for whatever reason, you’re sued.
Property insurance covers burglaries and robberies.
R.V. Nuccio offers property polices as well as liability policies. It also offers bonding policies, which as I understand it (someone correct me if I’m wrong, please) cover the club against malfeasance by officers, directors or other people working on its behalf.
Of course, as previously noted, R.V. Nuccio doesn’t do business in New York state, but somebody out there must provide comparable coverage. This may be a starting point: nycon.org/helping_nonprofits … gement.asp
The robbery was at a McDonald’s; may have been covered by them rather than any policy.
Those in this thread wondering if liability insurance is a good idea for USCF affiliates may be very interested in what occurred in March 2011 during our annual scholastic chess state championship event. It was held at a local college and there were 100 or so players participating. Some of the Middle School players had time between rounds and were playing soccer on the college grounds. Being somewhat chilly, they decided to go upstairs to the mezzanine level where the tournament was being held and play in a covered walkway that is 30 feet above ground and has plate glass windows (not safety glass) on both sides of the walkway. One of the coaches saw them playing and ordered them to quit playing which they did. Young teens being what they are, and it it being impossible to supervise every kid at all times, a couple of them decided to disobey and came back later to play one-on-one soccer in the walkway. You guessed it - One kid was pushed/fell into one of the windows and shattered most of it. The only reason his fate was not a 30 foot fall onto a solid concrete sidewalk was the grace of God and his opponent who grabbed onto him as he struck and broke the window. This window was floor to ceiling (5’ wide X 8’ high) and cost $2336.48 to replace it. R.V. Nuccio was our insurance company and they promptly paid the bill after estimates and verification. All of our board members would have been the subject of a major lawsuit as well as the college if this child was injured. It was amazing that the kid did not even suffer a cut from the jagged glass. The replacement cost of the window would have pretty much bankrupted our state chess affiliate. We had only purchased this policy a mere month and a half prior to the incident. I remember well our board meeting when we decided to buy the policy where jokes were made about what bad things could possibly happen at a chess tournament? So - if you think it can’t happen to your affiliate, think again. It was the best board decision we ever made.
Good chess,
Dude, I think you just helped R.V. Nuccio make its year-end sales quota with that story. Gave me chills.
It’s perhaps a sign of the times that your organization, and not the individuals who actually broke the glass, were deemed responsible.
What was your premium before filing the claim and after filing the claim?
We (RI Chess Association) paid an annual insurance fee of $265.00 back in February of 2011. So we are due for a renewal this February. We will soon find out if an increase in the annual fee occurs and I will inquire if any increase is due to the submitted claim. Their rate was the best around- probably because they specialize in insuring many small non-profit groups who have low risk factors.
Good chess!
Just a post to let everyone know that there was no policy rate increase even after the window claim was paid out. The policy for the 2012-2013 RI Chess Association cost the same as last year. ($265 annual fee) I doubt small nonprofits will find a better deal than this. I highly recommend them.
Good chess,
Frank Vogel
I regularly am involved with events with our state affiliate where the venue requires that the organization have liability coverage. The option is go to other venues, but for 300-400 player events there are limited other venues. The cost for our policy is less than 350 per year which we build into the budget for the event.
Your small local club may not need it. Some affiliates clearly do.
You made the best point for my argument: risk-benefit. There is almost no risk of something horrible happening at a neighborhood chess club. If it does, the risk of any person in the club being found liable is directly proportional to their involvement in the incident, i.e., unless they’re really, really stupid, zero. I don’t believe the U.S. has yet reached the point where someone who throws his back out lifting a chair can sue the TD.
Most club events occur in a building or on public property, right? All buildings carry insurance. In a pinch you can take out a personal umbrella policy to protect yourself. Keep it simple.