Mark Johnson (NAR Trustee)
   posted these comments about NAR Insurance on rec.models.rockets.
   
   
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In article <31D3EEF5.6EC1@insync.net> Martin Rogoff <mrogoff@insync.net> writes:
>I have some more questions.

>If we have a section, can we allow non-members to launch?  Does the 
>insured section cover non-members?  Would the site insurance cover those 
>non-members?

>What is the difference in coverage between an insured section and 
>additional site insurance?

Here's "NAR Insurance 101:"

- Section insurance protects the group, corporately, against liability claims 
during activities sponsored by the club. Individual members may still be held 
liable for their own actions. Some additional protection may be achieved if 
the club is a registered nonprofit corporation. Contact an attorney in your 
state for details here.

- Site insurance protects the site owner against damage to his property caused 
by actions taken during a rocket activity at his location. It does not protect 
the club nor the individual. It protects the site owner against damaged caused 
by them.

- Individual insurance protects the owner of the model in the event his rocket 
causes damage or injury to the person or property of another. If your 
homeowners or other blanket liability insurance doesn't cover liability for 
events arising out of hobby activity, you should seriously consider it.

In the case you inquired about (coverage of a non-member) - the site owner is 
protected against damage caused by said non-member, and the club is protected 
against action taken against it *as an organization*. If, however, the usual 
shotgun approach is taken by a plaintiff, everybody in sight is getting named 
as defendant and the courts will sort out how the liability is divided. As 
owner of a rocket causing damage, the non-member will bear a major piece of 
it. There's simply no way to stop that from occurring.

Some commentary:

In order to be completely covered, you really need all three levels of 
insurance. Case in point: At an insured site, an individual's rocket causes 
damage to a third party (not the site owner)'s car. The site owner may be 
named as a co-defendant in a legal action (as the activity is there at his 
invitation) but any liability should be picked up by the site policy. However, 
the individual who owned the rocket will still shoulder a portion (probably 
most) of the liability since his actions were the proximate cause of the 
damage. If he doesn't have some form of insurance, he's stuck with the bill.

Further: We used to talk about having an insured person act as RSO and/or LCO. 
In the above scenario, they should be covered by the CLUB's insurance policy, 
but ONLY while acting in their official capacity. Don't think for one second 
that a good attorney won't discover who the actual owner of a rocket is, 
irrespective of who pushed the button on the launch controller. Any attempt to 
shift liability to an insured party by lying about whose rocket it really was 
is unlikely to survive an aggressive discovery phase in a legal action...and 
involves lying to an officer of the court in any case.

Final note: NAR's insurance carrier won't provide site owner insurance except 
to an insured NAR section with five insured individual members. By definition, 
at least some members of the core group are fully protected. 

I think this about cover it all. Please note that I'm not a lawyer, I just end 
up explaining this stuff rather frequently!

Mark Johnson
Trustee, NAR

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