As school events and community activities return to full swing this fall, more of us are volunteering our time to help at these events. Whether you’re coaching your local elementary school’s soccer team or handing out water at a 5K, each volunteer has an important role to make sure events run smoothly.
As events ramp up, it’s a good time to think about potential risks and how to mitigate them with the help of community or event participant accident insurance.
This type of coverage helps cover the medical costs associated with injuries, illnesses or even deaths that occur as the result of an accident at a covered community or group event. For example, if someone falls while refereeing a youth soccer match and breaks a leg, community or event participant accident insurance could help cover the costs of medical care and treatment of those injuries.
Falls, cuts and other injuries can happen at any time, and nearly 40 million people go to the doctor each year because of unintentional injuries, according to recent research from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. If you operate an event or nonprofit, you should consider community or event participant accident insurance to cover those who volunteer for you.
Many times, organizations think they can depend on workers’ compensation to cover claims for accidents that happen. Workers’ compensation is a program that insures employees while they are on the job, and most likely will not cover volunteers who staff your event. Unless the volunteer has their own insurance, they could be stuck with a big bill — and the nonprofit could be held financially responsible as well.
Supplemental community or event participant insurance works in tandem with your regular general liability policy. Unlike a general liability policy with a lot of exceptions and certain circumstances, accident insurance is simple to understand. It is blanket coverage that covers anyone who has an accident on your premises or when taking part in your business’ activities. This means everyone, including coaches, participants, athletes, fans, students and volunteers are covered. They are also covered when traveling to or from events, tournaments and games.
Community or event participant insurance can put you and your volunteers’ minds at ease so you can focus on holding a successful event.
This article originally appeared on bizjournals.com.
Taylor Oswald, a minority-owned firm and partner organization of Oswald Companies, takes a global view of risk in the areas of property & casualty, employee benefits and health management, personal insurance management, retirement plan services and life insurance. To learn more, visit www.tayloroswald.com.
(Sources: healthypeople.gov)
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