UKC

Insurance needed for school trip - advice please?

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 Jim Houghton 26 May 2016
Hi all, wonder if anyone has wisdom on this. I'm taking a school trip to the Costa Blanca in October. We're going with an IFMGA guide. There are 8 pupils. He has said he's happy to take up to 12 (so I could get a few more) and use me (SPA qualified) as an instructor to ensure adequate supervision. My question is - do I need Public Liability insurance? The SPA is only a UK qualification so, in theory, I'm only acting as an instructor under the guide, so am I covered by his Public Liability? I've done a number of these trips before and never thought about this but it occurred to me the other day!

Hope that's clear. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Jim
 climbwhenready 26 May 2016
In reply to Jim Houghton:

Whether you're covered by his policy is a question you should ask him.

Are you acting as an instructor (is your experience relevant for this) or as a supervisor/teacher? If you're only providing crowd control (despite your extended knowledge) are you covered by the school's policy?

If you get public liability insurance you should be careful, as the terms might be that you are appropriately qualified/experienced, and you have to be sure that your qualifications/experience legally match up with the role you are performing.

I am not a lawyer (thank God).
 melocoton 26 May 2016
In reply to Jim Houghton:

Does your school not have a school trip coordinator? If so, they should be able to tell you. If not I would ring the LEA and ask them. It's a long time since I did a trip but when I did they actually did the insurance themselves, I just had to tell them how many were going and where to.
 Jamie Wakeham 26 May 2016
In reply to Jim Houghton:

Definitely a question for you to take to your EVC, and which I suspect they will have to refer back to the LEA for confirmation - this isn't the sort of thing you want to take a best guess at.

I am quite certain (as I was an EVC and am still an instructor) that if you're working with only pupils from your own school, and within remit, then the LEA's insurance is perfectly adequate - it covers everything, including PL.

However, as you're abroad, you're out of remit. So as far as your IFMGA is concerned, you're no different to any other teacher with a group of pupils he may have taken on. He may well choose to take more pupils than he normally might, on the basis that you're rather more competent than most, and he might delegate more complex tasks to you than he would with a teacher who's never belayed before, but those are all going to be decisions he takes within his own professional capacity and thus will be covered by his own policy.

So my first guess is, you won't need extra cover. But if I were your EVC there is no way I would state that as fact without a phone call back to the LEA to make sure!

ps:- are you sure that it's PL cover you're actually worrying about here? PL would be against, for instance, you dropping a rock onto a passer-by. I suspect what you're actually asking about is activity cover, in case you injure one of your pupils? None of that changes what I've written above, though.

OP Jim Houghton 27 May 2016
In reply to Jim Houghton:

Many thanks all for advice. That's given me a good framework to talk to EVC.

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