When you organise your own event, its very likely that your chosen venue will ask you to organise your own Public Liability Insurance. This article explains why its vital that you have your own event insurance, despite the fact that the venue themselves may already have their own insurance.
One of the questions we hear the most when it comes to the need for Event Insurance is...
“If the venue has their own insurance, why do I need it as well?”
This can be a confusing issue for event planners, and we have heard many stories of when an event planner doesn’t take out their own cover and comes to regret it. So we thought it would be useful for our event planners and brokers to have this explained as simply as possible.
The venue will hold their own Public Liability insurance policy, which will cover them - as the venue - for any accidental injury caused to members of the public through their own negligence; this would include guests at an event within their venue.
For example; if a carpet at the venue had been laid incorrectly and a guest was to trip over it and injure themselves, it could be the venue who would be liable. Similarly, if a staff member at the venue left a spillage on the floor and a guest slipped up, it could be the negligence of the venue rather than the event organiser that may be at fault.
However, as soon as there is accidental injury caused to a guest, or damage caused to the venue and / or its contents, caused through the negligence of the event organiser, the responsibility no longer lies with the venue.
For example; if, while setting up the event, the organiser left objects lying around which a guest later tripped over and injured themselves upon, the event organiser could be liable if the individual wanted to make a claim.
With this in mind, if the event organiser doesn't hold their own Public Liability insurance, the organiser could potentially be held personally liable for the claim. To give you an example, we recently had a claim against a wedding policy where a guest at a wedding in a stately home damaged a Versace Chaise Longue. The cost of the claim was £15,000. Fortunately, our client had Public Liability insurance in place as part of their wedding insurance policy so this protected the personal liability of the organiser. Without this, they may have had to cover the cost of the damage themselves.
Hopefully, this makes the issue of Public Liability Insurance, and why you need it, a little clearer.
We offer a full range of event insurance policies providing comprehensive Public Liability cover for a wide variety of events.Our expert team of underwriters are always on hand to answer any queries you may have, just give us a call directly on 01425 470360.