Is Rotary relying on annually changing volunteer office holders to act as quasi-risk managers and insurance coordinators?

No

The insurance team work with the brokers.

The policies meet the requirements for Rotary International and the management process is set as part of the worldwide risk management policies of Rotary.

Club are like franchisees and operates under direct charter from Rotary International.  Individually insuring is not an option.

The insurance committee operates at Zone level.

Personalise broker engagement that would normally accompany these declarations in the commercial world is supported by your insurance team that provides advice, support and risk management.  Brokers functions are narrower and certainly do not provide the risk management support that your insurance team provides.

There is always more that can be done, but our notifications and claims role and record under the Master policies has been delivering.

The issue is not about whether, as an officer appointed by your Club, trust or other Rotary entity, but whether you can confidently and accurately make the declarations being requested on the information sought.

Examples raised include how are the average Rotary president, secretary or club administrator expected to know:

• whether an event constitutes a "high-risk activity" - if in doubt ask a member of the insurance team by posting a Helpdesk ticket. Generally, if the event has a risk harm under the Health and Safety Act, consider the event as "high risk" and seek advice from the insurance team on how to risk manage and ameliorate. This is the difference between a brokers role and our insurance team. The team has templates for you to consider as a checklist. Finally, it is understood by the insurance team (that have been providing advice to Clubs for many years) that there are hundreds of types of events that need to be risk managed.  Key indicators are 1. are children involved 2. are the activities operated in a public space 3. are there special risks such a with sports 4 are there other parties involved such as stallholders  ..... these are not broker questions but questions for us as we are the parties that maybe operating, deemed to be a responsible party etc ;
• whether all club activities have been adequately disclosed your declaration here is your protection - so long as you have made real efforts to understand your Clubs operations, as the appointed officer, you are insured for omissions;
• whether a club trust should be included as a named insured - absolutely otherwise the trustees are not protected;
• whether a health and safety plan is sufficient from an insurance perspective - usually, yes. Together with the relevant RI policies and the RI mandated Crisis Management plan (get templates from the insurance team) a Health and Safety plan will be sufficient.  You are encouraged to work with a member of the insurance team as it is very easy to end up with adequacy of cover issues.  For example stallholders or operators of equipment such as bouncy castles must have their own cover.  Again file Helpdesk ticket so the team can help.;
• whether all activities involving children have been captured and described correctly - as noted above this is the most important issue as so many of our activities involve children - there are articles posted here and there are templates and policies to assist you;
• whether additional material damage cover is required; - if, after reading the notes your have specific issue please file a Helpdesk ticket so we can track and resolve and you can rely on the resolution
• whether any activity falls outside standard cover - see the answers above but to repeat possibly if high risk and not risk managed

The renewal documentation repeatedly references statements such as:

"Events that are not entered may not be covered"

"You must complete the declaration"

"Officers may be at risk of having claims denied"

When statements like these are coupled with a declaration process, volunteers are effectively being asked to make representations that may have insurance consequences without necessarily receiving personalised advice regarding the implications of those answers.

Understood.  Mistakes, omissions etc can happen.  That is why the insurance team is there to help via a documented process.  If they get it wrong your Club officer and the insurance team are covered!

That is why insurance is reserved to the Zone level.

This is not new.

If Clubs separately insured, as effectively franchisees, Rotary International would need to verify each Clubs insurance.

Apart from cost and the need possibly to apart from the broker, employee a risk manager, the very concerns raised by Club officers would be direct with them and they would not be insulated by the Zone team having the role and the burden of ensuring the covers are adequate and cost effective.

Again:

• if the information sheet is completed then the burden falls on the insurance team and any errors and omissions is their responsibility.
• The Helpdesk system provides a way to document any concerns/issues and have the response which can be relied on by the Club and its officers and trustees.