The association is insured. The question is whether the branch running the event is.
Associations and unions operate through chapters, locals, committees and volunteers, often in buildings they do not own. Cover written for the head office does not automatically reach the people acting in its name three towns away.
Start a quote file Read the short answer firstCheck the named insured, then check the definition.
Ask what the venue requires before you book.
Elected volunteers carry duties, and exposure.
Are our chapters, locals and volunteers covered by the association policy?
Only if the wording says so. Your policy names an entity on the declarations page at the front. Check which one it is. That name is only the starting point. The part that decides it is the definition of insured person, and that definition may or may not reach chapters, locals, committee members, volunteers and members acting for the association. Many association policies do extend that far. Many do not, and the gap can surface when a venue asks for a certificate in a chapter’s name.
The structure is what makes this different from an ordinary business. A company knows exactly who works for it. An association is a head office, a constitution, and a large number of people doing things in its name without being employed by it. The insurance has to be written around that shape deliberately.
It comes up when a venue or a municipality asks for a certificate naming them for an event. It comes up when a grant or a government contract lists required covers and limits. And it comes up after something happens at an activity that head office did not arrange and may not have known about in detail. All three are predictable, and all three are answered by reading your own wording well before anyone asks. A policy keeps two terms apart. The named insured is the party written into the policy, and it holds rights the policy gives to nobody else. An insured is anyone else the policy covers, which a wording can define narrowly or widely, and being an insured does not carry the named insured’s rights. The Insurance Institute of Canada’s definition, published in IBC’s glossary, puts it this way: an insured is “the person or party designated in the policy as the insured, who has certain rights under the policy, as opposed to someone who may be covered by the policy but is not specifically named and does not have the same rights as the named insured”. Which of the two a chapter or a volunteer falls into, or whether they fall into neither, is the whole question. Read the insured and additional insured entries in IBC’s glossary (opens in a new tab).
Four covers, four different questions.
General liability, reaching the whole structure
Injury to a member or a member of the public at an activity, and damage to a venue you used. The limit matters. What matters more is whether chapters, locals, volunteers and event committees fall inside the definition of who is insured.
Directors and officers
Elected boards make decisions about members, money, discipline and staff. Those decisions get challenged, and the people who made them are volunteers who did not expect personal exposure. The cost of defending a challenge, even one that goes nowhere, still has to be paid by somebody. Defence cost is what a directors and officers policy is written to answer, subject to how yours is worded.
Event and venue requirements
Halls, community centres, municipalities and schools set their own insurance requirements. A certificate naming them, at a limit they choose, is a condition of the booking. Those limits are set by the venue, so ask for the requirement early and in writing.
Crime and fidelity
Associations move membership dues, event revenue and sometimes benevolent funds through small volunteer treasury teams. Fidelity cover, also called crime or employee dishonesty cover, is the section that answers money or property taken by someone inside the association. It is a separate section, and it is not part of directors and officers.
Three that were nobody’s fault.
The certificate in the wrong name
A local branch booked a community hall and asked head office for a certificate. The hall wanted the certificate in the branch’s own name, and the policy named only the parent body. It was resolved, but it was resolved in the week before the event rather than the month before, which is how avoidable stress gets created.
The volunteer driver
A member drove other members to an event in their own car. Cover for vehicles the association does not own is a named extension you have to ask for, and general liability does not pick it up on its own. Volunteer driving is worth raising by name when the policy is set up.
The decision that was appealed
A membership decision made properly and in good faith was challenged by the member affected. Nothing was done wrong. The board still needed advice and a defence, and that cost arrives long before anyone decides whether the challenge had merit.
The ones that come up before an AGM or an event.
A venue wants us to add them. Is that a problem?
No. It is a routine request and your broker arranges it. Two things are worth checking: the limit the venue asks for, and whether the wording asks you to cover the venue’s own sole negligence. That last one reaches further than an ordinary additional insured request, and insurers generally will not extend cover that far. Send us the requirement itself rather than a summary of it.
Do our volunteers need to be listed by name?
Generally not. What matters is whether the wording defines insured persons to include volunteers acting for the association. It is a category, not a list. If your policy does not include the category, adding names will not fix it.
We run a small benevolent fund. Does that change anything?
It brings the handling of money into scope, which points at crime and fidelity cover, and it may affect how a funder assesses you. It is worth mentioning explicitly rather than leaving it inside a general description of what the association does.
Can locals or chapters buy their own cover instead?
They can, and it is sometimes the right structure. What causes trouble is a mix of the two arranged without anyone mapping it, so that each party assumes the other holds something. If you are going to split it, split it deliberately and write down which entity holds what.
Does group benefits for members fall under this?
That is a separate conversation and a separate licence. Ask about it directly rather than assuming it sits alongside the liability cover, because the two are arranged in completely different ways.
Two that boards ask straight after this one: whether a volunteer director can be sued personally and what happens when money goes missing internally.
Not the question you had? Send your policy and the question with it through the quote file and you will get a written answer.
Read the definition before a venue asks for a certificate.
It is one definition in your own policy, and it decides whether the people acting in your name are covered.