Insurance built around a membership, not sold to it.
Associations, unions and societies have two insurance problems at once: protecting the organisation itself, and getting members something better than they can find alone. We build both, and we will tell you plainly which parts are worth doing.
Talk about a program See what’s involvedDirectors’ liability, organisation cover, events and member programs
Trade associations, unions, professional bodies and member groups
What your membership does, roughly how many, and what they ask for
What is a group or association insurance program?
It is an arrangement negotiated once, on behalf of a membership, that individual members can then use. Instead of every member shopping alone, the group’s size and shared profile are used to negotiate terms with insurers. The paperwork, the wording and the renewal are handled once, centrally, not repeated a hundred times.
If the board has no cover, a claim about a decision it made lands on the individuals who made it, volunteers included. Employment disputes are the most common source and arrive with legal costs from day one.
It works when members genuinely have something in common: the same trade, the same equipment, the same contracts, the same regulator. It works badly when a group is simply a list of people.
The organisation, and the membership.
Directors & officers
Your board is personally exposed for the decisions it makes, including volunteer boards, which is often a surprise.
General liability for the organisation
Meetings, training, offices and anyone who attends what you run.
Events, AGMs and conferences
Venue requirements, alcohol, exhibitors and the certificates every venue asks for.
Employment practices
Claims from staff about dismissal, harassment or discrimination, the most common board-level claim.
Member programs
Negotiated arrangements members can buy into, with wording that fits what they actually do.
Certificates for members
The routine documents members need to work, handled centrally instead of one at a time.
What makes a member program actually work.
Plenty of association programs are announced and then quietly ignored by the membership. The ones that succeed share three things.
A genuine common risk
Members who do similar work can be underwritten as a group. Members with nothing in common cannot, whatever the brochure says.
Something better than they had
Broader wording, easier certificates, or terms they could not get alone. If it is only a logo, members will price-shop it in a year.
Someone answering the phone
Programs die on service. A named contact who knows the membership is worth more than the structure itself.
This is a growing part of our business.
So here is exactly what we bring, and what we do not.
What we bring: access to more than twenty-five insurers, real depth in construction, design professionals, manufacturing and habitational risk, a hard-to-place desk for the members other brokers turn away, and three offices your members can walk into. Our own people hold senior positions in the provincial brokers’ association, so committee work and standards are familiar ground.
What we do not bring is a shelf of pre-built programs waiting for a logo. We would rather look at your membership and tell you honestly whether a program is worth building. If your members are better served individually, we will say so.
A situation we see.
A former employee brings a claim about how a dismissal was handled. The board made the decision collectively. Without directors’ cover, the defence costs fall on the organisation and can be pursued against individuals.
Groups with something genuinely in common.
What boards and executives ask us.
How many members do we need for a program to make sense?
There is no fixed number. What matters more is how similar the members are and how consistent their insurance needs are. A tight group of eighty contractors is a better program than a loose group of eight hundred unrelated businesses.
Do our volunteer directors need insurance?
Yes, it is worth having. Serving unpaid does not remove personal exposure, and claims about employment decisions are the most common source. For a small society the cover is usually modest.
Our venue is demanding insurance for our AGM. What do we need?
Send us the venue’s requirement. Event certificates are routine, and the venue’s wording will specify limits and who must be named, which is what usually causes a rejection.
Will members be forced to use the program?
No, and they should not be. A program members choose because it is better will survive; one they are pushed into will not.
We already have a program with another broker. Is it worth reviewing?
Usually. Programs drift, the membership changes, the wording does not, and take-up quietly falls. We will review it and tell you honestly if it is already well arranged.
What does it cost the association?
Typically nothing to explore. Building and reviewing a program is work we do as part of the relationship, and we will tell you early if we think it will not work.
Running conferences or AGMs? event insurance.
Tell us about your membership.
What they do, roughly how many there are, and what they keep asking you for.
WE WILL TELL YOU EARLY IF WE DO NOT THINK A PROGRAM IS WORTH BUILDING
Registered as a society or charity? See Non-profits & societies.