It is important that you plan for all eventualities when organising your Community Games. You may be staging a series of small events for your community without a great deal of expenditure or even infrastructure. However, you have a duty of care to your volunteers and the people taking part and should ensure adequate insurance is in place.

As you may be staging your events in a community centre, school, park or leisure centre, it is recommended that you check with the venue regarding what insurance they hold already. It may be that all policies that you require are covered through them.

The key policies are listed below, but you should also check with your local council to see what their requirements are for events:

• Public liability insurance
  This covers any award of damages given to a member of the public because of an injury of damage to their property caused by you or your event.  It also covers legal fees and any medical fees.

• Employer’s liability insurance
  This covers the costs and fees for employees (volunteers) injured or taken ill during the event through the fault of the organiser.

• Equipment hired in insurance
  This covers the costs of replacement equipment or items provided by your hire contractors in the event that equipment is either damaged or stolen during your event. Some hire companies include a charge for insurance on their quotations.

Arranging an insurance policy is straight forward and commonly starts with a policy application detailing every aspect of your event. You might be asked to provide additional or supporting detail if any part of your application is unclear.

A typical insurance premium cost for an event of around 100 persons with a policy cover level of around £1 million is between £50.00 - £100.00.

BIBA, the insurance brokers’ trade body has a database of brokers which you can search by postcode or area - www.biba.org.uk.