[Artemisia] The SCA's Insurance

[Dr. C. M. Helm-Clark Ph.D.]

> One thing I keep seeing mentioned on this discussion, and I may 
> be reading things wrong, is a perception that the SCA insurance 
> covers players who might be injured at an SCA sanctioned event; 
> whereas from everything I can recall from prior years in another 
> kingdom (West) it was pointed out to the populace that if you 
> are a player and injure yourself at an event the SCA insurance 
> will not cover you. 

I used to be pretty clueless about liability insurance
and civil suits that involved insurance companies that
underwrite liability policies - but then I got to see
the insides of the first civil suit filed against the
SCA and got educated really fast. 

Can you say UGLY? I knew you could... ;-)

There are few things in the SCA as misunderstood
by the populace as insurance.  Our insurance is
what is known as umbrella liability insurance. It
covers paying for damages in the instance that the
SCA is liable in causing harm through a failure of
a legal "duty" that the SCA should have fulfilled.
In the confused world of common law, this is a tort.
Lots of things are torts, like medical malfeasance
(malpractice), failure to provide a safe environment 
at a workplace or in a public park (negligence), etc.  

As part of a civil suit against the SCA, if officers
of the SCA are also named as being at fault in the
suit, then most umbrella policies have provision to 
for the insurance company to fight the legal battle 
for us, use their house lawyers to represent the SCA 
as the defendent and to arrange "demurrals" for the 
officers of the SCA not directly involved to be 
removed as parties to the civil suit - so the 
corporation takes the lumps, but not the individual 
officers. E.g., in our first lawsuit, the insurance co.
represented us in court using their in-house lawyers
and successfully arranged for most of the SCA officers
named in the suit to be demurred. The case was
eventually settled and the insurance company paid out
damages on the behalf of the SCA. Frankly, the insurance
worked just as one would have hoped it would and it 
saved the SCA's collective butt big time. We paid
for the insurance policy; we didn't spend a dime in
damages. The insurance did that for us.

Think of it this way:
The SCA's liability coverage is just like the liability 
coverage for property and persons that pays for the 
damages for harm to victims and their property in the 
event that you in your car cause an accident - except 
that the insurance that the SCA buys is just for our 
liability and doesn't have all the other stuff you get 
on car insurance like collision or fire & theft.

So with that intro, here's some more info about
liability insurance culled directly out of an
official SCA handbook:

Regardling liability insurance and officers of the SCA:


> "The third reason to become warranted is that as a warranted officer
> of the SCA, you may be covered by the SCA’s liability insurance. Such
> coverage depends on the nature of the incident that engendered
> litigation, whether the country you live in is included in the SCA’s
> policies, and what your role was in the incident in question, etc.
> (see Appendix D). For example, if you performed an emergency
> tracheotomy on the list field when the only thing wrong was a sprained
> ankle, it is extremely doubtful that you’ll be covered under the SCA’s
> liability insurance. The extent of coverage is also variable, since
> the SCA occasionally changes insurance carriers, and every insurer and
> policy is different."
> 
> "Because the coverage extended under the SCA’s liability policies
> depends on several 
> variables, an absolute guarantee of coverage can not be promised. The
> SCA, however, has been involved in a small number of civil suits, and
> overall, SCA officers have been protected by the insurance and their
> legal expenses reimbursed where applicable."

Here's a little more on the nature of liability 
from the glossary of that same handbook:

> Liability: When we speak of liability, we are usually talking about a specific form of liability 
> called liability for damages. In general, there are three ways you can incur liability for 
> damages: 1) failing to satisfy a duty under Common Law (a tort) or Roman Law, 2) failing to 
> satisfy a duty imposed by statutory law or regulation, 3) failing to satisfy a contract or other 
> legally-binding agreement. 
> 
> Liability Insurance: Liability insurance in the United States and Canada will pay or partly 
> pay certain claims for monetary damages, and sometimes legal expenses, if the holder of the 
> insurance is found liable for damages, or if claims for damages are settled outside of court. 
> The terms of liability insurance are variable and depend on the law where the insurance is 
> issued, the size of the organization buying the insurance, the activities of the organization, 
> and the type of liability covered. For example, a liability insurance policy for John Doe’s 
> Grocery in the small town of Blue Earth, Minnesota will be different from that of the 
> National Association of Cat Herders, and the policy for general liability insurance for the 
> Deteriorata County Fair will be different from Dr. Frankenstein’s medical malpractice 
> insurance. 

> Negligence: In general, negligent actions usually involve action or inaction which 
> substantially vary from an expected norm of behavior or which involves a reckless disregard 
> for the rights of others. Negligence is perhaps the most common kind of tort and involves a 
> failure to meet a duty of care. Almost always, the wrong-doer has failed to exercise that 
> degree of care in a situation which would be expected of a hypothetical reasonable person. 
> 
> The failure to exercise the duty of care must be the proximate cause or legal cause of the 
> injuries or harm sustained by the victim. 

> The entries in this glossary were based in part on the following sources: the Organizational 
> Handbook of the SCA, Inc.; the glossary of SCA terms maintained by Ken Mayer, Director of 
> the Golden Stag Players, at www.goldenstag.net/MiscSCA/glossary.htm (accessed May 
> 2001); the glossary of SCA terms by Stacy Sandstedt., and maintained by the Province of 
> Silver Desert, a local branch of the SCA in Reno, Nevada, at www.silverdesertsca.
> org/chatelaine/ah.html and www.silverdesertsca.org/chatelaine/i-.html (accessed May 
> 2001); the legal dictionary and encyclopedia maintained by the Nolo Foundation at 
> www.nolo.com/index.html (accessed May through October, 2001); and Black's Legal 
> Dictionary, 2nd Pocket Edition (June 2001), B. A. Garner, Ed., West Information Pub Group, 
> ISBN: 0314257918. Any legal information in this glossary and the Handbook is just that: 
> general information about legal matters. In no way does any of the legal information presented 
> here constitute legal advice or legal opinion by a lawyer or any other legal professional. 

Don't you just love disclaimers?

Now some caveats:
No liability insurance policy will cover you 
in the event of "gross negligence." Most will not
cover liability incurred as the result of your
criminal actions and after all those law suits
against the Roman Catholic Church, no one will 
cover you if there's a whiff of being involved
or implicated in anyway with acts of child 
molestation and/or abuse.  

Anyway, I hope that this helps explain what liability
insurance is and how it works (or doesn't work) to 
protect the officers and corporation of the SCA.

How did the SCA get to the point to needing liability
insurance?  Easy: we couldn't get event sites in certain 
law-suit-happy states without it.

ttfn
Therasia