Remember all those insurers and insurance brokers earlier who were shouting about who had the best features and benefits? Well it's time to grit your teeth and listen to what some of them have got to say, particularly about "Bodily Injury". One insurer defines bodily injury as including "Death, Illness, Disease or Nervous Shock". Another defines it as including simply "Death, Injury or Disease" Still a third as "All physical injury to a Third Party including death, sickness, disease, mental injury, anguish or shock resulting from such physical injury".
If you haven't nodded off you might see the [not so] subtle differences between the 3 definitions. The first includes Nervous Shock but what exactly is that? Well, the legal definition of Nervous Shock is a mental condition that extends beyond grief or emotional distress to a recognised mental illness. This contrasts with the third example which includes mental injury, anguish or shock which are not conditions as advanced as Nervous Shock and so potentially provide a better scope of cover as if any of the conditions described did progress to a mental illness then the cover would still be effective. Conversely, the first does not state that Nervous Shock must result from a physical injury whereas the third example will only cover the mental injury, anguish or shock (and sickness or disease) if it results from physical injury. The second definition provides no scope of cover for any form of mental anguish or illness.
So, which option would you prefer or does it even matter to you, your club or your members? At the end of the day all of them appear to "tick the box" as far as what the RYA's intention is.
However, we must consider what the intention of the insurance is. Is it to indemnify the club, centre and instructors in the event of injury arising during the course of the training itself - ie during actual instruction on and off the water - or something more? What about the efficacy of the training? What if somebody suffers an injury or damage several months after training and alleges it was as a result of an error or omission during training? In this scenario the club or centre would almost certainly have no protection from their Public Liability Insurance.
Furthermore, the extract from RYA Training Notice TN 07-15 (above) calls for cover in respect of "other damage or loss". Whilst damage to third party property would normally be met, "other loss" presumably means some form of loss (eg. purely financial) other than injury or damage which, in fact would not be covered under the PL Section and would normally require a PI policy to protect this kind of liability.
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