[SEL] RE: Dogs on show grounds....Now Insurance in the U.S.

[Paul Pavlinovich]

Andy,
I don't know of any laws stating you have to have public liability 
insurance (I'm happy to stand corrected on this) so I suspect our bodies 
choose to insure. There is absolutely nothing making a club or an 
individual insure with the NHMA - our club does have some uninsured 
financial members - they just cannot go in the compounds, but they don't 
want to.

It is also the same here that the government (at least the Victorian 
state government) has assumed responsibility legally for some events 
which simply cannot afford their own insurance and would otherwise 
dissappear.

The organisers of an event are the ones who have to decide for the event 
as a whole and they may enforce insurance, some even want to inspect a 
certificate of insurance.

Personally I would not be without the insurance and am happy to pay the 
$12 (not $15 as was stated in your note). It is a very small price to 
pay for the lifting of that particular burden.

We are free to not be insured if we so choose, you will not be able to 
exhibit at most events but there are exceptions to this too. Some events 
have their own insurance and do not require exhibitors to be insured.

Really a lot of fuss is made over nothing. We have not lost anything. By 
and large we run our rallies the way we want to - most clubs operate 
quite safely as the majority of our rules are simply common sense. The 
National is a little different because you have so many people there (it 
is still nothing on the scale of the big US shows but it is big for our 
standards).

Other large rallies who do not have NHMA (e.g. Echuca) still operate 
under the same rules as the NHMA because it makes sense to do so. Even 
Puffing Billy Railway (which has no affilitation with NHMA) uses the 
NHMA rules for events (e.g. Olde Time Festival and Emerald Winterfest) 
because it makes sense to do so.

Paul

Andy Glines wrote:
>> In the States there are no federal laws saying that a public event has
>> to be covered by liability insurance. To my knowledge there are no
>> states with such laws in place either. In fact some states have passed
>> laws stating that for many public events, the organizers cannot be held
>> liable for injuries. In particular equestrian events.

-- 

pjp at steamengine.com.au
Emerald, Victoria, Australia
www.steamengine.com.au


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