Annex 1 – Insurance for community resilience groups
Having a Community Emergency Plan means that your community will be a safer, more supportive place to live, and has the potential to result in reduced insurance claims. Community resilience activities should be very low risk and not put volunteers or the public in any danger. So, you should not see insurance or liability issues as barriers to preparing your community for emergencies. Depending on what your group wants to do, you should check that your group has the cover it needs in order to do the things it wants to with confidence.
Some groups, particularly those linked to Community Councils, may be able to extend their existing insurance cover to include non-mechanised community resilience activities at no additional cost. Insurance providers will be able to confirm if this applies to particular groups.
Think about the following types of insurance and check your cover:
- third party liability cover – check that your group’s third party liability cover includes the things you want to do
- motor insurance – drivers must make sure they are covered for the proposed use
- professional indemnity insurance – if volunteers use their professional skills by providing specialist advice or services, they should ensure they are covered
If you have existing insurance, and are in any doubt, you should always contact your insurer.
Third party liability insurance
This insurance covers injury to people who are not employed by your group and damage to property not owned by you. This protects the organisers of activities if something goes wrong and they are blamed or taken to court. You can buy different levels of cover, from £1m up to £10m or even higher. Don’t worry – this seems a lot but costs of this insurance are relatively low.
For every-day activities that you might do to help your neighbours, in a personal capacity, your ordinary household buildings or contents insurance will generally provide personal liability cover. You will need to take reasonable care and should not take unnecessary risks.
If you are part of an existing community group, you will probably have third-party liability insurance, and you should check with your insurer that the types of activities you want to do will be covered by your policy.
Some communities have made arrangements with their local authority to enable actions taken as part of their community emergency plan to be covered under the local authority’s third-party liability insurance. You may want to discuss this possibility with your local authority.
It is important that groups remain flexible, to be able to respond to a range of different scenarios that may face them. In general, they will be covered for all non-mechanised community resilience activities. These could include, but would not be limited to:
- clearing snow from paths, drives and minor roads
- checking on the welfare of local people
- giving lifts and helping with shopping
- filling sandbags
- assisting in searches for missing people in the area
And, where previously agreed with their local authority and where appropriate training has been provided:
- opening community facilities such as village halls to provide places of refuge for people in the community
- deployment and placement of Property Level Protection (PLP) during flooding e.g. Flood Gates
- by specific agreement with the relevant authorities, erection of temporary emergency signage to protect the general public during an emergency
In some circumstances, groups may want to use mechanised equipment such as chainsaws or mechanical earthmovers. Higher risk activities such as these, or working at heights, would not be included under existing cover. If this is the case, it is important that groups, or the individuals concerned, either arrange separate insurance cover, or contact their insurer to check whether this would be insured under existing covers, or whether it would be possible to arrange it for an additional charge.
8.2 Motor insurance
Motor insurers recognise that policyholders who want to help their communities through volunteer driving need clear and accurate information. Drivers should check that their insurance covers them for what they want to do, for example: helping people with their shopping, or giving people lifts.
Find out more about which insurers cover volunteers using their vehicles on the ABI website.
8.3 Professional indemnity insurance
This is insurance which protects businesses and professionals against claims arising from alleged negligent work done or advice given.
If, as part of a community resilience group, a volunteer does something that relates to their profession, for example if an engineer provides advice of the construction of flood defences, they should ensure that their professional indemnity insurance covers this activity.
More information on insurance is available from: