Insurance
Three contentious issues
Work Parties
Many Groups engage in practical work such as footpath maintenance or improvement work.
The civil liability insurance policy does cover this kind of work, but with a large number of provisos which, in practice, often means that Groups with working parties need to ensure that separate insurance cover is arranged.
Working parties are covered as long as they are not working on maintenance or repair to “furniture” (eg stiles, bridges, steps, gates etc) or working with power tools (eg. chain saws, strimmers). In practice, this tends to mean that the only work that is covered is path clearance using loppers, rakes, forks or other such manually operated tools.
Groups who wish to work on “furniture” or use power tools need to arrange alternative insurance. In some cases, this can be arranged with the local authority. There are a number of Groups carrying out work in partnership with their local authority, where the volunteers are included in the authority’s own insurance.
In cases where this is not possible, Groups or Areas can arrange separate
insurance for working parties through a policy offered by
BTCV (British Trust
for Conservation Volunteers). This policy is not cheap but it does allow
Groups to carry out valuable work and it does provide additional personal
accident cover. It is also possible that an Area could arrange cover on behalf
of a number of Groups engaged in this work.