Hi,

I am CMIOSH with 13 years experience. I have been asked by my church to become their H&S Officer. I have agreed but a colleague pointed out that I should have some insurance to protect myself.

Should I? Where do I get it? What fine print should I be looking at? Roughly how much is it going to cost me?

Any advice greatfully received!

Thanks

Thanks Mootoppers - that is really helpful. I am doing this voluntarily so I will check about the church's insurance covering me.

Bassetc,
If you were going to be working as a "proper" consultant", then you might need insurance. By this I mean with a contract, prescribed hours of work, detailed description of what you will do then Yes - insurance needed. Professional Indemnity cover - to protect agianst eventuality that your advice leads to loss or damage.

But I guess you're going to be helping out, working (if it can be described as such) in the same way as any other church member e.g. the organist, the Captain (?) of the bells etc. No insurance necessary in my opinion.

Phil

I disagree I'm afraid. You will be giving H&S advice, therefore like it or not you are open to being personally sued and losing your house (extreme example? yes of course, but theoretically possible). You need insurance.

However as mootoppers has correctly indicated, the church is quite likely to be able to include you on their own insurance so that you are covered at their cost. I have done exactly this in the past for former employees of a company that came back on a very occasional basis to give advice. Our insurer covered them as a matter of course.

I agree with Heather. Insurance protection is essential. It can come via the church but if it is please make sure you have something in writing from the insurers, e.g. copy of relevant part of policy or statement confirming that you will be covered as a volnuteer giving H&S advice. It is quite important not to simply assume that insurance provides the cover you expect it would!

If you decide to go for your own insurance, and most would I think, it really isn't very expensive. It also makes it less likely that you would end up out on a limb with no cover and for a few hundred pounds is it worth taking the risk
Best place to start is in your MYIOSH page under IOSH extras. It will give you a idea of the type and cover provided in policies that may be relevant and might even be the best deal :-)

p48

Phil

If you give H&S advice to any organisation, paid or not, you potentially make yourself liable for that advice if something goes wrong, yes. This does not necessarily mean you have to take out your own insurance, but it does mean that if you do not check that you are covered by existing insurance as mootoppers suggested above then you leave yourself open to litigation in the future.

Let me give you a scenario.

The church /club whatever needs a fire risk assessment done. It's easy enough so you do it. You miss something and as a result the church / club burns down. Do you think that in our litigation-conscious society the building's insurers would just say "never mind,he isn't a 'proper' consultant, so it's not his fault" and swallow the cost? Of course they wouldn't. They would pursue the only person they could in this case - the person who gave the wrong advice. Yes this is an extreme example but why take the risk.

Zyggy, Governing bodies are considered to be Corporate bodies and thus a Governor acting in good faith, reasonably and honestly is unlikely to be held personally liable in exactly the same way as an employee is unlikely to be. http://www.education.gov...27-guide-to-the-law/gttl

There is a strong recommendation for Governing bodies to have indemnity insurance these days so the real answer is that yes you should check the actual insurance position before you take on such a post. http://www.guardian.co.u.../schoolgovernors.schools

I also did a similar role and was covered by insurance held by the school, which did cover its Governing Body as we were not an LA school.

Heather,
Your example is a fair one. I know I tend to fall into the trap of thinking of personal accident examples. It is a result of my background!

But I must ask this:

The building burns down
The insurer faces a loss of, say £750k. They pay up to the church or owner
They will consdier what recoveries they might be able to make.
Do you really think that they will seriously consider suing a private individual? Would there be suffficient evidence to mount a strong case? What view would the court take? Would they have some sympathy for the poor private indvidual who had "tried but failed"?

And what would the insurer stand to gain? Perhaps £250k (if they won their case) plus a shedload of bad publicity. I do not think a recovery claim would get off the ground

As has been said - lots of ifs and maybes about matters such as this. There is no definitive answer and certainly no case law. Checking there is cover under the organisation's policy is good move. But personally I think the risk of being prosecuted is so low that insurance for the individual is not required.

Phil

Over a decade ago as a member of my local geology & lapidary society I carried out a goodwill inspection of its workshop and advised members via a magazine article about health and safety aspects of stone cutting and polishing activities whether in the workshop or using their own machines at home. As I don't recall checking out insurance cover or including any disclaimer with my article, In the light of this thread I'm relieved that the society closed the workshop several years after my inspection because the building rent and insurance cover became too expensive. The standards in the workshop were good because the members who organised and equipped it were mostly engineers and scientists who were aware of appropriate standards regarding electricity, machinery guarding, etc. Airborne dust was avoided because the lubricants for the stone cutting machines effectively entrained the fine particles created during the cutting processes.

Sadly, the society was disbanded last year because of declining membership, though some members still meet informally and share the use of their machines at home. However, I don't worry about what I wrote in the magazine article because I'm confident that it contained nothing which could be misinterpreted and be used against me.

Heather,
It wsn't a case of misunderstanding... I meant to say "sued" not "prosecution"....

I would have thought from the rest of my posting my error may have been obvious - but I apologise for not sense checking my posting more accurately. I blame a heavy cold!

As for your comment that £250k isn't small change - I agree. But what is the monetary value of being splashed across the national newspapers for pursuing a guy who tried to help but made a mistake? I think you underestimate the extent to which insurers will try to protect their reputation.

Phil