Dear Club/County Representative,

Those of you who have club insurance through our club scheme have public liability and employers’ liability included in it. This continues in the policies you have recently renewed. You may well not be aware that in the past your directors and officers, as well as those of our counties and district organisations, have also had a measure of legal liability cover under our Management Liability insurance as a national body. It has not often been needed to be used.

The current insurance position is very difficult in general, primarily due to COVID, and our insurance broker told us at the time of our renewal that our insurers were unwilling to continue this specific cover, which they felt they had been over-generous in providing in the past. Our broker said then that they expected to find a solution to this through some other route and they extended our existing cover by one month while they investigated it. Unfortunately they have come back to us yesterday saying that in the current circumstances no insurers are willing to provide this cover for clubs, either as part of the EBU insurance or as an add-on to club insurance. They do however still have some hope of providing this cover for county volunteers, since there are only 39 of them rather than 630, though that is yet to be confirmed. They also think that once things settle down when they get back to normal, insurers may be willing to consider this again.

To be clear no measure of legal liability cover under our Management Liability insurance will apply to our clubs and districts this year from 1st May 2021. We are still awaiting confirmation of the position for counties.

The answer to the other insurance question we have been asked by some clubs to raise with our insurers, relating to claims arising from COVID regulations, can be found on the website.

Regards,

Gordon Rainsford

Chief Executive

English Bridge Union