Insurance Agent being a Kill Joy.

ChrisBarefoot · **Posted:** Tue Jul 25, 2017 11:22 am

Hagerty seems to slowly be offering more and more of these services: https://www.hagerty.com/insurance/motorsports-insurance

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Tue Jul 25, 2017 3:19 pm

Lockton is offering Autocross insurance now for $250/year.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Tue Jul 25, 2017 4:17 pm

Note neither of these provide any liability coverage which is by far the most important coverage.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Tue Jul 25, 2017 4:57 pm

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

Note neither of these provide any liability coverage which is by far the most important coverage.

Yeah, although a $1MM Umbrella Liability policy is about $130 a year. That said, if things really go pear shaped at an autocross, $1MM isn't going to be a drop in the bucket. - AB

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Tue Jul 25, 2017 5:40 pm

Aaron Buckley wrote:

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

Note neither of these provide any liability coverage which is by far the most important coverage.

Yeah, although a $1MM Umbrella Liability policy is about $130 a year. That said, if things really go pear shaped at an autocross, $1MM isn't going to be a drop in the bucket. - AB

I'm guessing the liability release really just releases the club from liability to some extent, but we have to buy an insurance policy for every event anyway right?

Obviously the clubs insurance doesn't cover participants but does the liability waver signed by participants release any of them from liability?

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Tue Jul 25, 2017 6:43 pm

Aaron Buckley wrote:

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

Note neither of these provide any liability coverage which is by far the most important coverage.

Yeah, although a $1MM Umbrella Liability policy is about $130 a year. That said, if things really go pear shaped at an autocross, $1MM isn't going to be a drop in the bucket. - AB

Doesn't matter what limit an umbrella policy is since it will never come into play...that's the problem with the way the changes in the insurance policy regulations are worded. Since you cannot ever reach the liability limit of the policy (due to the restricted $30k/$60k max allowed coverage on track, at an autox, etc), the umbrella policy is never activated. It's going to take a court case to set precedent apparently, but as it stands now, umbrellas don't apply.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Wed Jul 26, 2017 10:49 am

Chad Culbertson wrote:

I'm guessing the liability release really just releases the club from liability to some extent, but we have to buy an insurance policy for every event anyway right?

Obviously the clubs insurance doesn't cover participants but does the liability waver signed by participants release any of them from liability?

The waiver only goes "so far" as court precedent has established on more than one occasion. If you're deemed at fault through gross negligence, it won't matter what waiver the injured party signed as an example. Even if you're not guilty of gross negligence, you have to fight a legal battle without your insurance company leading the way (like apparently what is happening with the Summit Point incident), so be prepared to spend huge sums defending yourself in what might be a multi-party claim...as to what sum that might be, one can only guess but $100k is likely just getting started in a worst case situation. With no liability insurance policy and company fighting for you, it takes huge sums of money to "win" which in that case might mean spending multiples of $100k in such a situation.

Hence I think this is the reason there are essentially no companies willing to write comprehensive liability policies for HPDE and autocross. They aren't stupid. They know the vast majority of people fall into two categories: (1) don't care; (2) don't understand the situation and believe that "they are fine" living in denial or ignorance; therefore, sum up #1 and #2 and you get 98% of the participants, so your market might only be 2% of participants. There isn't enough potential sales to offset the "one claim" that will consume all of that meager revenue X 10 or more. The net of it is nobody cares about their personal liability situation until a claim against them happens....sort of like if you own your house outright, you can cancel your insurance policy against fire, etc. Saves money, right?

Cline, chime in if any of this is off-base.

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Mon Jul 31, 2017 1:25 pm

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

Chad Culbertson wrote:

I'm guessing the liability release really just releases the club from liability to some extent, but we have to buy an insurance policy for every event anyway right?

Obviously the clubs insurance doesn't cover participants but does the liability waver signed by participants release any of them from liability?

The waiver only goes "so far" as court precedent has established on more than one occasion. If you're deemed at fault through gross negligence, it won't matter what waiver the injured party signed as an example. Even if you're not guilty of gross negligence, you have to fight a legal battle without your insurance company leading the way (like apparently what is happening with the Summit Point incident), so be prepared to spend huge sums defending yourself in what might be a multi-party claim...as to what sum that might be, one can only guess but $100k is likely just getting started in a worst case situation. With no liability insurance policy and company fighting for you, it takes huge sums of money to "win" which in that case might mean spending multiples of $100k in such a situation.

Hence I think this is the reason there are essentially no companies willing to write comprehensive liability policies for HPDE and autocross. They aren't stupid. They know the vast majority of people fall into two categories: (1) don't care; (2) don't understand the situation and believe that "they are fine" living in denial or ignorance; therefore, sum up #1 and #2 and you get 98% of the participants, so your market might only be 2% of participants. There isn't enough potential sales to offset the "one claim" that will consume all of that meager revenue X 10 or more. The net of it is nobody cares about their personal liability situation until a claim against them happens....sort of like if you own your house outright, you can cancel your insurance policy against fire, etc. Saves money, right?

Cline, chime in if any of this is off-base.

That seems like a pretty good assessment to me. It certainly does make you think twice about whether it's worth the risk, probably my most feared scenario would be hitting a course worker obviously, I don't really care about the car as much, since it can be fixed and can't sue me and I might have to pay to repair some facility stuff.

I have seen a couple close calls and often wonder what the outcome of that could be. I don't exactly have a bunch of money laying around the pay a lawyer to defend me, and even if I did that seems like if I were to hit a person, I don't have much chance of getting away from that without having to pay something.

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