30 <strong>May</strong>
Liability Stuff: Information from the PCA Insurance Chair By Carey Spreen Photo courtesy of the Author was invited to attend I the Zone 5 Presidents’ Meeting back in February of this year to cover what goes on at one of these conferences. One of the speakers at this meeting was Ken Laborde, the PCA Insurance and Risk Management Chair. Ken is a member of Mardi Gras Region, right here in Zone 5. What he had to say was important enough to merit its own article. I’ll follow up with what else happened at the meeting in a subsequent story in <strong>Slipstream</strong>. Ken has been the Insurance Chair since 2003, and is an insurance defense lawyer. He began his presentation by Ken Laborde, the PCA Insurance and Risk stating Management Chair that liability insurance is PCA’s second largest expense, behind the costs associated with producing Porsche Panorama. To date, the club has an excellent record regarding insurance claims, but premiums can increase if that good record changes. However, if our premiums become so expensive that PCA can’t pay them, we lose insurance coverage, and without insurance coverage, there is effectively no club. Ken explained that PCA has a group policy, which means that a claim from any one Region affects all Regions. It is for this reason that all Region officers must be aware of the proper safety procedures and forms. PCA’s policy is a $10 million annual aggregate, which covers all events, but any claim is paid out of that aggregate amount, so a single large claim can use up some or all of that $10 million. The policy covers event participants, event officials and instructors, and crews and sponsors. Losses covered include bodily and personal injury, property damage, and advertising claims. Losses not covered include vehicle damage, structural damage, and spectator claims. Ken made it a point to impress on us the fact that PCA does not want anyone at an event to be classified as a “spectator;” this is why we insist that anyone present at a so-called “moving car” event, in which cars are moving while the event is taking place, must sign the insurance waiver, thus classifying them as participants and not spectators. This is also a reason the PCA events cannot charge admission, since someone paying an admission fee could be construed as a spectator. Regions must submit a request to insure a particular event at least three weeks in advance of that event, in order for the request to be processed efficiently. An event that does not involve moving cars, such as dinner meetings or Concours d’Elegance events (because the cars are moved before and after the event, not while the event is taking place) are automatically covered; we do not need to request coverage in these cases. However, for all moving car events, including tech sessions (during which cars can be moving up and down on lifts), tours, rallies, autocrosses, time trials, Drivers’ Ed events, and Club Races, insurance must be requested specifically, with extra fees applying to the latter three types of events due to the higher speeds and potential for greater damage involved. Everyone at an event must sign a waiver, including adults and minors. There are separate waivers for minors, which must be signed by a parent (ideally both parents) or a guardian; other relatives or friends of the family don’t count. A point that Ken stressed was that the organization must have a system in place for getting waivers signed in order for the event to be covered, showing that the event officials took reasonable steps to minimize risk in their event planning. Having both an insurance certificate as well as signed, dated, and properly witnessed waivers are indicators of risk awareness and mitigation. Waivers must be retained for seven years plus one month after the end of the event, although digital copies are completely acceptable. One little-known fact that Ken noted was that when someone signs a waiver as a witness, that person is stating that he or she actually witnessed each person actually signing the form. In situations where a single person did not witness all of the signatures, additional witnesses must sign the witness area to show that all participant signatures are valid and authentic. Simply having an event official witnessing a waiver after the fact is not sufficient and will not hold up in court. Something to consider when someone is about to hand around that clipboard containing a stack of waivers! Speaking of waivers: some states require that certain statements contained in the waivers be printed in red, so make sure that if you copy them, they are color copies. All waivers and other safety forms can be downloaded from https://www. pca.org/forms-documents after you have logged in with your PCA username and password. 31