Setting up or already running a Community group? Have you ever considered “What insurance do I need if I run a community group such as a Men’s Shed, Repair Café, Hackspace or something similar?”
Here at E&G, we specialise in offering comprehensive community group insurance, at a highly competitive price. Since 2018, we’ve sold more than 500 annual insurance policies to Men’s Sheds alone across the UK, all of whom seem quite happy with their policy and the level of cover provided to them. Furthermore, our Managing Director, Helen Sergeant, successfully managed the Men’s Shed at the Princess Alice Hospice for over 3 years. So you can trust us!
We offer free advice to community groups on their insurance, and we’re always only a phone call away from pointing you in the right direction. Having said that, we’ve tried to best summarise the insurance you need, why you need it and the importance of having it below.
MUST HAVES:
The key covers that every community group such as Men’s Sheds will need to have are:
- Public Liability
- Employers’ Liability (if you have employees and/or volunteers)
We can provide Public Liability at a range of monetary limits. This means that you are covered for compensation claims and legal costs if anyone (other than employees or volunteers) suffers personal injury or property damage because of your community group.
Employers’ Liability might seem a confusing one, especially as a lot of community groups have no official ‘employees’ but only volunteers. Unfortunately, under UK law the liability for any injury that happens to volunteers will still fall upon the organising party, or in this case the community group. So in this sense volunteers are regarded as employees and, therefore, any group with volunteers will need this insurance too.
PREMISES:
- Buildings Insurance
- Contents Insurance
These two covers act as they would with your home insurance. If you rent a space you’ll only need contents insurance, however if you own the space in which your community group operates then buildings insurance will be necessary. This will provide financial protection from damage to the structure caused by incidents such as fire, storm, lightning or flood, whilst contents insurance will protect your machinery and goods left within the premises in the event of theft, fire or flood.
ADDITIONAL EXTRAS:
Once you’ve sorted out both Public and Employers’ Liability and made sure you’ve got the applicable cover for buildings and/or contents you can then consider some of these optional cover extensions, that can often still be important for the peace of mind of members, but not specifically necessary for the day-to-day effective running of the Shed.
- Trustee’s Indemnity
Trustee’s Indemnity insurance will ensure that if a breach of trust, breach of duty or negligence claims are made against the trustees on the community group they will not have to personally pay legal claims.
- Legal
Trustee’s Indemnity insurance will ensure that if a breach of trust, breach of duty or negligence claims are made against the trustees on the community group they will not have to personally pay legal claims.
Legal cover will pay for the defence of legal proceedings for things like employment disputes, health and safety issues and data protection breaches. In addition, this cover provides confidential legal advice on any commercial legal problem and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
It is worthwhile noting that the above applies equally to Repair Café’s and Hackspaces as it does to Men’s Sheds.
We hope this advice helped you understand the specific needs of your community group. With every policy tailored to the specific group it’s no wonder we’re the UK’s leading insurance provider in this sector. So please feel free to get in touch to further talk through options by either giving us a ring on 0208 2550617 or by emailing our community group specialist Tristan at tristan.sheppard@exportandgeneral.co.uk.