An employer plans to allow their staff a days holiday per year to volunteer for a charity, event or project of their choice. They have developed a policy that says the volunteer should check that the project or activty is covered by the appropriate EL/PL insurance and provide details of the activity, event or project, the organisation or charity concerned and the nature of the work. They are informed that they would not be covered for 'Heavy Lifting', use of power tools or extreme sports.

Other than requesting a copy of any relevant risk assessments, is there anything else that you think needs to be considered?

Ta.

Thank you David. I am not surew that I follow your first paragraph?

Are you sure that your company insurance extends to volunteering activities outside of the workplace and off duty?

You make an excellent and valid point Ray, and one that I had missed.

Demonstrates the value of the forum.

Ta.

Ray/Decinormal,
Speaking from the perspective of being involved in the supply of EL insurance (i.e. I work for an insurer) I can say that this is a very grey area.

Ordinarily I would say that if an employee is allowed time off - as holiday - to carry out voluntary activites then the employer's EL insurer as no interest in what that employee does. I would suggest that it is no different to someone "volunteering" on a Saturday or Sunday.

BUT - and it may be a big "but" - if the employee is granted time to carry out voluntary work during normal working hours then such activities could be regarded as being in the course of employement. And thus if injuries resulted from such work could end up being regarded as work injuries and if a claim was made it could end up as an EL claim. Hence the insurer's interest.

I would expect the majority of EL policies to provide cover for such activities..... in the same way that cover is in place for private work such as maintenance people going to do work on director's houses. And yes claims from such activities are not unknown!
Phil