Caving insurance - club opinion/policy ?

[Pitlamp]

Blimey, you lot can't half make a meal of things!

Stop worrying about insurance.

..but it's more interesting discussing this than doing what I'm meant to be doing... 

  Fair comment!

 

[Wayland Smith]

This has been an interesting thread.
It will be good to have a clearer idea of the cover.

I wonder how groups taking paying visitors (public) into "Tourist mines" and similar
are covered when using this insurance for members?

 

[Peter Burgess]

This has been an interesting thread.
It will be good to have a clearer idea of the cover.

I wonder how groups taking paying visitors (public) into "Tourist mines" and similar
are covered when using this insurance for members?

They ought to have taken out a different insurance policy specific to what they are doing.

 

[martinm]

Everybody living has been 'trained' John. By their parents when young, by their schoolmates as they got older.

If u r doing a riskier activity later in life like caving or climbing you need training of some sort, even if just off your more experienced mates. Like I said above I know of someone who almost free-fell down Slit Pot. It is so easy to forget to check something, you should know that as u r one of the most experienced cave divers in the country. Everything has to be checked and double checked, unfortunately less experienced people don't always do that, which could be why we've lost some of the most respected cave divers in the past, oh I don't know, 20 or more years?

I taught my friends in my caving club SRT & ladder work. The only reason one of them is still with us is cos I instilled (trained) in them to always clip in to the next section of rope when ascending. He almost slipped down a 50ft pitch, but didn't thanks to having his cowstails clipped in. Life is a constant training exercise!

What if you didn't arrest a friend who fell while climbing on a crag? You have to know how to belay and lifeline. Training. Someone had to show you how to do it safely & properly, then practice.

You absolutely do need insurance these days. What if I did 'something' in my area of the peak that caused a child to fall off their bike? Their parents would sue me for negligence. These are important issues.

So just get ya insurance and use best practices in whatever u r doing and u should be fine. Cave/Climb/Dive/Cycle/Extreme Iron (lol) safe everyone.

 

[nickwilliams]

This has been an interesting thread.
It will be good to have a clearer idea of the cover.

I wonder how groups taking paying visitors (public) into "Tourist mines" and similar
are covered when using this insurance for members?

If no one in the club gets paid anything other than out of pocket expenses (as evidenced by receipts for the expenses incurred) then they will be covered.

If the mine is operated as a business and people make money out of it then it won't be covered.

 

[cap n chris]

If u r doing a riskier activity later in life like caving ... you need training of some sort, even if just off your more experienced mates.

Or maybe not.

What if the more experienced mates' idea of training is teaching/showing you that using a namby-pamby safety line is something you don't need once you know what you're doing?


I too am enjoying this thread just for the sake of debate/chatter!

 

[cavemanmike]

what you really need is "the correct" training. poeple are more informed now than they have ever been, it's so easy to find out how to get the right training(even if only to find out how to not do it)

 

[Bob Mehew]

Like Cap'n Chris, good to see some chatter.  So what about a club's SRT rope?  Should they only loan it to those show some level of competence? Ditto any other gear as well.

 

[cap n chris]

So what about a club's SRT rope?  Should they only loan it to those show some level of competence?

I know of clubs where they already do require this.

 

[cavemanmike]

I know of clubs where they already do require this.

ditto

 

[Les W]

So what about a club's SRT rope?  Should they only loan it to those show some level of competence? Ditto any other gear as well.

Who are you going to get to judge somebody else's competence, are you not making a rod for your own back if you start down that road...  :-\

 

[cavermark]

We once had a guy turn up to SUSS who seemed to be experienced. He came straight on a trip down Notts pot with us. Alarm bells should have rung when all his SRT kit was new. He said he had just replaced it all after being stolen. He got stuck at the head of the last pitch on the way up, with 4 of us below him. He was overweight, knackered and didn't know what he was doing. Managed to squeeze past eventually and rescue him then talk him through exiting the cave. Turned out he had just read lots of books but never actually done SRT. We insisted that everyone attend one of our weekly indoor SRT training sessions to be vetted before going on underground SRT trips after that...

 

[cap n chris]

So what about a club's SRT rope?  Should they only loan it to those show some level of competence? Ditto any other gear as well.

Who are you going to get to judge somebody else's competence, are you not making a rod for your own back if you start down that road...  :-\

They get signed off by another longer-standing club member who has caved with them and witnessed their personal progression competency on rope. No qualifications required. On completion they have access to the full range of club equipment.

 

[Les W]

I wasn't suggesting any qualification!

My point is, id somebody says that somebody else is competent, then it transpires they are not, the person that said they were could end up being found negligent...

Now I know that to some people it is obvious that others are competent/incompetent,but as soon as they put their name to a statement as such, they are putting themselves into the firing line of any subsequent legal action...

 

[Pitlamp]

what you really need is "the correct" training. poeple are more informed now than they have ever been, it's so easy to find out how to get the right training(even if only to find out how to not do it)

I beg to differ - what you need is "the appropriate" training. This implies a little more flexibility.

The problem is, who chooses what is "correct"?

Anyone remember when the HSE suddenly decided anyone ascending or descending ropes should always use double rope technique? They sought to inflict this on everyone in a work situation. This was probably sensible in many aspects of paid ropework. But it demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the situation in caving. If it wasn't for certain individuals who put in a great deal of effort to persuade them otherwise, we'd have had a situation whereby hired instructors would have had to teach DRT, even though this was not the appropriate method of choice for cavers.

Stay flexible; stay safe.

 

[jasonbirder]

They get signed off by another longer-standing club member who has caved with them and witnessed their personal progression competency on rope. No qualifications required. On completion they have access to the full range of club equipment.

While I'm sure that's an approach that may be favoured by some very structured, formal and hierarchical clubs...it certainly goes against the muck in, enjoy yourself, take people at their word kind of approach i'd favour... 

 

[Pitlamp]

They get signed off by another longer-standing club member who has caved with them and witnessed their personal progression competency on rope. No qualifications required. On completion they have access to the full range of club equipment.

While I'm sure that's an approach that may be favoured by some very structured, formal and hierarchical clubs...it certainly goes against the muck in, enjoy yourself, take people at their word kind of approach i'd favour...

I know what you mean Jasonbirder. I think the person who wrote that is a member of the same club as me. The idea is that there is at least some basic safeguard against someone injuring themselves or others without it being particularly onerous. It's all about balance really. It seems fairly sensible; I had to jump through that hoop myself and it didn't take much effort.

It also protects me - would I want absolutely anyone in the club having access to ropes which I depend on, without some sort of reassurance that they'd not leave ropes which had become unsafe in the store for other people to use?

Most caving issues can be resolved with the application of some basic common sense.

 

[cap n chris]

Now I know that to some people it is obvious that others are competent/incompetent,but as soon as they put their name to a statement as such, they are putting themselves into the firing line of any subsequent legal action...

No more so than a driving test.

The wording would be along the lines of "on such-and-such a day/trip so-and-so satisfactorily demonstrated their ropework ability", or somesuch. Whether or not they then subsequently behaved like an idiot should result in no consequence to the writer of the chitty.

 

[cavermark]

I think of it along the lines of - would I loan this person my own SRT ropes or harness etc.?
If I was dubious about them knowing how to look after them properly/rig well etc. then I would ask them a few questions to establish what they did know (eg. not storing them with a leaky lead acid battery etc.).

If I still wasn't happy, and a few pointers wasn't going to solve the problem, then I wouldn't lend them the kit. 

I think club equipment should be loaned (or not) on the same basis.

 

[Bob Mehew]

My point is, id somebody says that somebody else is competent, then it transpires they are not, the person that said they were could end up being found negligent...

Now I know that to some people it is obvious that others are competent/incompetent,but as soon as they put their name to a statement as such, they are putting themselves into the firing line of any subsequent legal action...

I suggest it comes down to a balance of probabilities between two cases.  So in the first case, it would be the probability of wrongly assessing a person as competent coupled with that supposedly competent person having an accident.  Whilst in the second case it would be the probability of an unchecked person not being competent and having an accident.  Which case seems less likely?

Plus it is worth noting that in the first case, the other club members have a defence against being individually sued in being able to 'say well we had a procedure even though it went wrong for some reason'.  Where as in the second case they have no such defense.