Motorcycle Club Insurance Information
ORRA Insurance information you will want to know when you sign up for member club insurance!
Comprehensive Liability Insurance is designed to protect a person or legal entity against legal responsibility (or legal liability) arising out of a negligent act or failure to act as a prudent person would have acted to which results in bodily injury or property damage to another party. Any individual involved in your activity can claim damages as a result of an injury. Even though you may not be negligent in your actions, defence costs alone can be financially devastating. The policy is intended to provide protection for both legal defence costs and any compensatory damages that may be awarded, subject to the limits and conditions of the policy. Transferring your risk to an insurance policy provides you the opportunity to run your activity with peace of mind.
What activities are covered?
All sanctioned and approved motorcycling activities except for races, USA exposure, liquor liability, etc.
All activities must be documented and approved as per each motorcycle club/organization governance guidelines.
Who is an insured?
All volunteers, officers, directors and members during sanctioned club activities. Also municipalities, government departments, sponsors, landowners and organizers but only as it relates to the sanctioned event.
A sanctioned event is defined as an organized group ride which is documented prior to the date of the event and on file. Lists of individual members including volunteers participating in the ride must be on file with the insured. Events organized and conducted by an individual member does not automatically constitute a sanctioned event. An executive of a member club will be required to provide sanctioning approval prior to the event taking place.
Failure to obtain sanctioning approval or failure to document the sanctioned event may result in a breach of coverage and the insurer shall not have any duty to defend any individual member for any suit arising as a result of a non sanctioned event or improperly documented sanctioned event.
Why Does My Club Need Club Insurance? The insurance in place is for a motorcycle member club. It is a liability and non owned automobile policy and provides indemnity assessed against the club or its member clubs for legal liability assessed against your club in law for your actions or activities.
All events involve motorized vehicles who carry their own primary insurance. The motorcycle club and the members also have exposures and will have liability assessed against it should actions be deemed to have caused bodily injury or property damage.
You cannot rely on the primary insurance of the motorcycle to protect the Club and its members as the driver may not be “at fault” for the incident. These policies only provide indemnity to the named insured (bike owner) and not to the member club. They will only defend in court the named insured.
It is for this reason that Motorcycle Clubs require standalone Coverage is for declared activities. NOTE: THERE ARE EXCLUSIONS FOR RACING, USA EXPOSURE, LIQUOR LIABILITY, ETC.
For example – a club runs a spring bike tune up/road safety event and arranges or rents a parking lot to do this. Who is renting the lot – the individual bike owner or the club? It is the club and the club is now PRIMARILY responsible for any occurrence that happens during its care, custody and control of the site. Depending on the nature of the incident (motorcycle hit member of public, motorcycle falls over and injures someone, etc) the automobile policy will be called in but you need this other coverage for defence purposes and to provide indemnity to the organizers should they be held to be the ones who are negligent. The owner of the parking lot will demand proof of insurance and that will fall on the organizer to demonstrate that proof.
Typically lawsuits name everyone remotely connected with an incident. If the club and it’s members are named in an action, this policy provides primary defence coverage (should the allegation be an insured event) and peace of mind that this is not directly out of pocket while the allegations are investigated etc. I cannot imagine anyone would want to be a director or officer of any of the member clubs without some insurance protection!!!!!! Otherwise you are exposing personal assets even to defend a groundless allegation!!!!!
Insurance for Ride Captains One of the benefits of membership is liability insurance coverage for leading ride activities.
In order to take advantage of this coverage, the following conditions must be met:
An insurance certificate is a document illustrating that the current affiliated member organization (club, team, business, or organizer) is covered by the organizers insurance policy. The insurance certificate does not in and of itself grant insurance coverage. In fact, if no third party asks you to name them on an insurance certificate, then you don’t need to apply for one.
Important Note: Even if you don’t need an insurance certificate, you still need to follow the sanction process in Section 2 below before your activity or event is covered under the policy.
Insurance coverage is granted for Sanctioned Events and Activities. Examples of activities and events that can be sanctioned are:
- The named insured is Ontario Road Riders Association and its member clubs. Club must be paid up and in good standing to participate in this program, all club names must be provided to underwriters to ensure they are covered as well as the number of members in each club.
- Coverage is for LEGAL LIABIILTY, $2,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 in aggregate for policy term. The member club and/or ORRA must be held legally liable by the court for this policy to respond, deductible is $1,000
- Coverage includes products/completed operations, personal injury (libel, slander, and defamation).
Comprehensive Liability Insurance is designed to protect a person or legal entity against legal responsibility (or legal liability) arising out of a negligent act or failure to act as a prudent person would have acted to which results in bodily injury or property damage to another party. Any individual involved in your activity can claim damages as a result of an injury. Even though you may not be negligent in your actions, defence costs alone can be financially devastating. The policy is intended to provide protection for both legal defence costs and any compensatory damages that may be awarded, subject to the limits and conditions of the policy. Transferring your risk to an insurance policy provides you the opportunity to run your activity with peace of mind.
What activities are covered?
All sanctioned and approved motorcycling activities except for races, USA exposure, liquor liability, etc.
All activities must be documented and approved as per each motorcycle club/organization governance guidelines.
Who is an insured?
All volunteers, officers, directors and members during sanctioned club activities. Also municipalities, government departments, sponsors, landowners and organizers but only as it relates to the sanctioned event.
A sanctioned event is defined as an organized group ride which is documented prior to the date of the event and on file. Lists of individual members including volunteers participating in the ride must be on file with the insured. Events organized and conducted by an individual member does not automatically constitute a sanctioned event. An executive of a member club will be required to provide sanctioning approval prior to the event taking place.
Failure to obtain sanctioning approval or failure to document the sanctioned event may result in a breach of coverage and the insurer shall not have any duty to defend any individual member for any suit arising as a result of a non sanctioned event or improperly documented sanctioned event.
Why Does My Club Need Club Insurance? The insurance in place is for a motorcycle member club. It is a liability and non owned automobile policy and provides indemnity assessed against the club or its member clubs for legal liability assessed against your club in law for your actions or activities.
All events involve motorized vehicles who carry their own primary insurance. The motorcycle club and the members also have exposures and will have liability assessed against it should actions be deemed to have caused bodily injury or property damage.
You cannot rely on the primary insurance of the motorcycle to protect the Club and its members as the driver may not be “at fault” for the incident. These policies only provide indemnity to the named insured (bike owner) and not to the member club. They will only defend in court the named insured.
It is for this reason that Motorcycle Clubs require standalone Coverage is for declared activities. NOTE: THERE ARE EXCLUSIONS FOR RACING, USA EXPOSURE, LIQUOR LIABILITY, ETC.
For example – a club runs a spring bike tune up/road safety event and arranges or rents a parking lot to do this. Who is renting the lot – the individual bike owner or the club? It is the club and the club is now PRIMARILY responsible for any occurrence that happens during its care, custody and control of the site. Depending on the nature of the incident (motorcycle hit member of public, motorcycle falls over and injures someone, etc) the automobile policy will be called in but you need this other coverage for defence purposes and to provide indemnity to the organizers should they be held to be the ones who are negligent. The owner of the parking lot will demand proof of insurance and that will fall on the organizer to demonstrate that proof.
Typically lawsuits name everyone remotely connected with an incident. If the club and it’s members are named in an action, this policy provides primary defence coverage (should the allegation be an insured event) and peace of mind that this is not directly out of pocket while the allegations are investigated etc. I cannot imagine anyone would want to be a director or officer of any of the member clubs without some insurance protection!!!!!! Otherwise you are exposing personal assets even to defend a groundless allegation!!!!!
Insurance for Ride Captains One of the benefits of membership is liability insurance coverage for leading ride activities.
In order to take advantage of this coverage, the following conditions must be met:
- Ride Captain should be deemed competent by an agent of the ORRA Member Club
- Maintain an annual motorcycle license
- Ensure that all participants
- Hold a valid motorcycle license for the current year; or,
- The participant(s) are taking part in a club activity led by a Ride Captain and are members of the club hosting the event; or,
- The participant(s) are taking part in an activity for which the club commercial insurance policy has been purchased, which extends liability insurance to all participants, even non-members
An insurance certificate is a document illustrating that the current affiliated member organization (club, team, business, or organizer) is covered by the organizers insurance policy. The insurance certificate does not in and of itself grant insurance coverage. In fact, if no third party asks you to name them on an insurance certificate, then you don’t need to apply for one.
Important Note: Even if you don’t need an insurance certificate, you still need to follow the sanction process in Section 2 below before your activity or event is covered under the policy.
Insurance coverage is granted for Sanctioned Events and Activities. Examples of activities and events that can be sanctioned are:
- Rides
- Training activities
- Some social or fund raising activities of the club
- Coverage is extended to all members of the event organization, club, including directors and volunteers, as well as to sponsors, landowners, governments, and municipalities for liability arising from their role in the Sanctioned Event.
- Post an Event Which will include:
- The location and date of the event or activity
- The type of event or activity. For example:
- A club ride
- A club fund-raiser
- A training activity
- You can also sanction and insure a series of activities all at the same time. If so, you need to provide the information described above for each individual activity / event in the series
- The name of the license holder who will be organizing and supervising the activities / events.
- CREATE AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLAN: You must ensure that you have created an emergency response plan for the activity or event, and that you have arranged to provide a reasonable amount of supervision and a reasonable number of certified first aid responders given the size and type of activity. For example, a club ride needs to be supervised by at least 1 ride leader and at least 1 certified first aid responder (this can be the same person as the ride leader)
- ABIDE BY ALL LAWS: You must take reasonable steps to make sure that no local, provincial, or national laws are broken when organizing or executing the activity or event
- REPORT ALL INJURIES IMMEDIATELY: You must report any injuries requiring transportation to hospital.
- When in doubt, contact ORRA with details of the event. We can then obtain an opinion as to whether the event is insured by regular program or if separate coverage required.
- Obtain full registration waivers for any event involving participation by members and non-members (i.e. charity toy ride, etc.). These waivers need to be retained for a period of time in case an action is launched after the event.
- Each member club should have an incident form to record details should an unfortunate situation occur. Should something occur, get as much information at the scene as possible and contact ORRA immediately even if you are not sure if a claim will occur (i.e. a bike fell over at a spring tune up, someone appears to be hurt....getting these details now can save a lot of issues later).
- All participants in any sanctioned event MUST have own coverage on their motorcycle. It is recommended you take a photocopy of their pink liability card at registration for the event.
- Most events will require a certificate of insurance. Will require the name of the member club and full name and address of certificate holder (usually the owner of a facility or a City/Town/Region where event is held).