I will look into liability insurance after Thanksgiving. When we were at Borders from 2008 to April, 2011, we did not need it. In the previous incarnation of the club, when it was at a school, the previous director of the club, the guy who started the club in 1995, had liability insurance for several of his events and for the club per school rules. He said the insurance was pretty expensive but did not go into details. The $48 club membership fee went for that and for some minor administrative expenses. After membership dropped to about a dozen, he disappeared in early 2008 and did not return phone calls, e-mail, etc. A few of us picked up the pieces, moved to a new site, and reenergized the club for the kids. Then we made it an open club and dropped the membership fee. We have been growing ever since.
At the risk of stating a very unpopular opinion, I believe the answer is “no.” It is only very recently that the federation has been running a small financial surplus. Remember, the federation has been through several extremely difficult years, including a very substantial bequest that was almost entirely lost to legal fees. It is unfortunate that liability insurance is expensive for a group of eight people to afford, but I really believe the resources are just not there for the federation to distribute money to small clubs.
I believe the answer is no even if the federation was flowing with funding. The federation did its part by working with an insurance provider to provide what may be a very low rate (I haven’t dug into the specifics of the policy offered). If the federation were to provide funding for things like this, I wonder what the risk to the federation would be and what responsibilities would the federation have to perform such as background checks on the club operators, etc.
I haven’t spoken with this provider but to satisfy my curiosity I should because I’d like to know if that $265 is truly a flat fee no matter what (along with the language of the coverage). I kinda find that hard to believe because insurance carriers will run the businesses and individuals through loss claim systems to see if either has filed previous claims, etc to provide a better risk profile (which may increase the rates) not to mention that different parts of the country have different risk profiles that can affect the rates (Boise, ID and NYC, NY have two very different insurance risk profiles).
I just don’t see there being upside here for the federation to get further involved aside from helping negotiate a lower cost for liability insurance. Now that’s a more unpopular statement than what you stated Ken!
Now if only we could get the USCF to work with a pooled provider for healthcare for USCF members! That would be killer!
My advice is to look for a new location. The Route 20 Chess Club, which I helped found, meets on the campus of the local community college and periodically rents space there for tournaments. It has never required the club to carry liability insurance. Neither has the public library, where the club has also held events. Be creative and persistent. Simply put, if your current location requires you to carry insurance you can’t afford, it’s not “nice” enough for your purposes, and you need to find someplace “nicer.”
In my opinion USCF should have some obligation to dues paying members and dues paying Affliates to provide some level of coverage for them; possibly a blanket USCF policy could do this. The dues for members and Affliates should be something more than a fund raising device.
Did its part? Upside for the USCF? Surely anything that can help clubs survive and bring in new members and retain existing members is worth some support. A policy for State Affliates that covers their Affliates is one idea. A policy that protects members that play in USCF rated events is another. An active Club Committee is another.
I don’t find the risk reward ratio to be appropriate. Let’s use some examples to illustrate.
Version 1 - The USCF extends liability insurance coverage to chess clubs. Let’s say USCF and the Club goes 50-50 on the cost by the affiliate rate (maybe an insured version) goes up to $40 + the 50% of the liability insurance.
How does the USCF determine which affiliate is eligible for the liability insurance. Is the USCF going to go through the process of making that determination? So more staffing required for this and more costs. If the USCF doesn’t do its due diligence then what legal liabilities will they get held to.
Version 2 - The USCF ‘reimburses’ the affiliate after the affiliate has purchased the insurance coverage at the rates that the USCF had negotiated.
How does the USCF determine which affiliate is eligible for the reimbursement? Since the USCF provided the reimbursement specifically for this purpose what legal liability does it place the USCF into if something goes wrong at with that affiliates events? Sure the liability insurance is supposed to cover things but if there’s the opportunity to bring in more pockets to the party people will do it. Additionally how does the USCF that there aren’t people scamming the system? They pay the insurance premium, USCF reimburses them, then the affiliate cancels their coverage and gets a refund from the insurance company. So what kind of controls are going to be created to provide against fraud?
I’m sure there are multiple other versions we can go through. But again I don’t see the risk-reward ratio being something worth exploring.
In regards to this specific insurer, I don’t buy into that process of getting liability insurance without going through a formal process. Having worked in insurance, I find any process that just insures with an online application and nothing more to be suspect when time comes to file / pay claims.
And the fact that it appears this insurer cannot write policies in NY is suspect to me and warrants investigating on why they can’t. Was their license pulled? Did they decide that NY is too expensive to underwrite policies in, etc?
I would prefer our club to be as independent as possible from the USCF with regard to liabilities and insurance. We have a decent insurance company in mind and better lawyers available if anything arises. The USCF can send us magazines and do ratings; we will do the rest just fine with our business model.
Another bump. What has the USCF Clubs Committee done this year? Has the chairman contacted any of its members? Is there any action agenda for this committee?
No written report was made to the Delegates in 2012. Will one be made this year?
The marketing director has sent out an e-mail initiative to all affiliates to participate in a “National Chess Week” in October. This would have been a good time for the Clubs committee to get to work to get the message out to promote chess.
How many clubs are going to participate in “National Chess Week?” Is your club going to try to put on a viewing of the movie, hold an event, or get out the word to your local school districts? This might help your club as well as the USCF.
Since I have just learned of this marketing effort today, I have not had time to contact our membership. However, we are in contact with several schools. We will start the ball rolling to spread the word to our locale concerning this USCF initiative. Who’s next?
I’d add… And at what point do the Delegates step in and replace the committee if they refuse to report on their activities? According to the current committee list, the members are:
That is a whole lot of people, and I would like to know what has been done in the past three years.
It would have been nice if the chairman, the EB liaison, or the Office liaison had contacted the members of the committee. That has not happened in three years. Not even to say hello.