Clifton CC

Following recent concern about liabilities and insurance requirements I thought I should point at two press articles on the subject, both coincidentally in this month's CTC mag (arrived in yesterday's post) and today's Observer (collected from my local keep-in-touch-with-the-world paper shop).

In the CTC mag their legal man Paul Kitson answers (but not in fantastic detail) a question from Anerley Cycle Club about liability of clubs and club members in case of a liability case being lauched against the club.

In todays Observer Finance section the editor Margaret Dibben points out a little known fact that car insurance gives very little financial protection to a car driver personally (as opposed to third parties) if the driver is found guilty of the cause of an accident. She argues that insurers should make make this disrepancy more obvious in their policy wording, but reckons that additional personal accident insurance (handy should you finish up a wheelchair case or worse) will only give payments way below those available to people claiming under third party.

Have a nice day, and drive (ride) carefully! Oh, and do some in-depth net surfing!

Third-party insurance is there to protect the third-party only which is why it's a legal requirement for drivers.

As far as I undertsand it:
In a BC cycle event (and presumably other organisations), the event insurance protects the Club, it's officials and volunteers against being sued by a third party (ie not someone involved in any way with the event) should an accident occur. It doens't protect the riders at all. They are only covered if they have taken out their own insurance such as through the CTC or BC.

BC silver/gold insurance indemnifies you against claims by a 3rd party where you are deemed to be at fault (either partly or wholly), if you are proved to have deliberately caused an accident (eg run someone over because you don't like them) then you're not covered. Presume CTC membership gives you the same.

Its worth checking that your CTC or BC membership covers you for the type of event you're riding - I know that BC covers you in CTT time trials and Audax's but not TLI events.

The problem - as I am finding out at the moment - is that if you are the third party it can be very difficult to get an admission of liability out of some car drivers - even in cases which are 'open and shut' in the basic facts.

That's because all insurance companies will insist that you don't admit anything.