Insurance for Ski Education Foundations

We are about to birth the Eastern Sierra Cross Country Ski Club which will
be a ski-education-foundation nonprofit corporation. One of the areas we
still need help on is insurance.

We will attempt to raise money and then parcel it out to various ski teams
here in the area. We will sponsor and offer activities such as dryland and
on-snow camps.

We think we understand that nonprofit incorporation gives directors,
officers and members legal protection from personal liability for claims
against the corporation, but we are concerned about claims made against
club members as individuals.

Any advice and experience you all can offer will be greatly
appreciated. What sort of insurance should a new ski-education-foundation
club have. What sort of personal liability insurance should club officers
and coaches have?

Ski Exuberantly,

Hank

Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

Hi Hank -
I'm no authority on insurance or insurance law. But I was the staff when
the New England Nordic Ski Association was formed and we went through a lot
of these same questions. That was getting on for a handful of years ago now,
and I don't remember everything clearly. But I believe we got an officers
and directors liability policy in addition to whatever blanket liability the
organization got. That officers and directors coverage was simply to protect
our volunteer officers in the event that they got named in a suit because of
their position in the organization. I think we found that there was some
exposure there even given our 501(c)3 status.
Our general liability policy was set-up so that we could name event
organizers and volunteers as "additional insured" parties for NENSA
sanctioned event where the organizers might not have sufficient coverage.
This basically gave us the ability to provide individual coverage to anybody
who took on particular responsibility and therefor exposure for a given
event.
The coverage for members as individuals is something that came up. I
believe that it was fairly clear that NENSA members would be individually
liable for their actions, and we had no problem with that. Our biggest
concern was that the organization be protected from the actions of anybody -
members or outsiders. I don't think we ever figured it would be much of an
issue for an individual to be sued as a result of the actions of the
organization. Or if there was that possibility (because the individual was
in a position of responsibility for a given event) then the individual would
be named as an additional insured.
I think those two coverages gave us what we needed to get going. To my
knowledge there has never been a claim made against any of the NENSA
policies. I don't remember what the premiums were, and I have not idea what
they are now.

Anyway, good luck with getting the club/foundation running. And
congratulations. I hope you can get some better advise someplace.

Zach


"Hank Garretson" wrote in message
le.com...
We are about to birth the Eastern Sierra Cross Country Ski Club which will
be a ski-education-foundation nonprofit corporation. One of the areas we
still need help on is insurance.

We will attempt to raise money and then parcel it out to various ski teams
here in the area. We will sponsor and offer activities such as dryland
and
on-snow camps.

We think we understand that nonprofit incorporation gives directors,
officers and members legal protection from personal liability for claims
against the corporation, but we are concerned about claims made against
club members as individuals.

Any advice and experience you all can offer will be greatly
appreciated. What sort of insurance should a new ski-education-foundation
club have. What sort of personal liability insurance should club officers
and coaches have?

Ski Exuberantly,

Hank

Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

Hank,

I have gone through the same things trying to find insurance for the
camps I organize, our local club, and a large race series that I organized
last year. I happened across a company, K&K Insurance (in Indiana, I don't
have any other info with me) that has helped me out a lot.

I would recommend hiring an experienced lawyer to help you get through
all of the paperwork and tell you what coverages you will need. If you
can't afford to pay one (or find a skier to help you out pro bono) to do
everything, then get all of your eggs lined up and then pay him/her to look
over what you're doing. There are just too many loopholes and weird
precedents for the average Joe to cover.

K&K helped me out with General liability and we also run most of our
events on a "per head" basis where we pay a small fee per participant for
coverage on that event. The only thing I have not been able to find is
coverage for our camps outside of the US. I've had to go through domestic
companies in Argentina and New Zealand to obtain insurance there. That was
fun.

Good Luck,

Nathan Schultz
Subaru Factory Team/Boulder Nordic Club/Colorado International Spring
Series
www.nsavage.com
www.bouldernordic.org
www.springseries.com

"Hank Garretson" wrote in message
le.com...
We are about to birth the Eastern Sierra Cross Country Ski Club which will
be a ski-education-foundation nonprofit corporation. One of the areas we
still need help on is insurance.

We will attempt to raise money and then parcel it out to various ski teams
here in the area. We will sponsor and offer activities such as dryland
and
on-snow camps.

We think we understand that nonprofit incorporation gives directors,
officers and members legal protection from personal liability for claims
against the corporation, but we are concerned about claims made against
club members as individuals.

Any advice and experience you all can offer will be greatly
appreciated. What sort of insurance should a new ski-education-foundation
club have. What sort of personal liability insurance should club officers
and coaches have?

Ski Exuberantly,

Hank

Mammoth Lakes, Calif.