After recently reading some of the comments here about insurance I thought I should check out what the WWA Members Insurance Policy actually says. Obviously we should all take great care not to cause accidents on the water but as we all know they do sometimes happen. I was concerned that the WWA policy excludes accidents between members. Seems strange to me - have I got this right? So if you hit another WWA member you have no third party insurance! You are only covered if you hit a non-member. If you want to compete in WA you have to be a member of WWA (or a club) for insurance purposes but it appears that it only covers you for injury caused to people not competing (and not members). So you have to take out another private insurance to ensure that you are insured.

Below is the extract from the policy. Does anyone know of any insurance for windsurfers that doesn't exclude anyone? Any comments/explanations?


Insurance
Should you be unfortunate enough to be held liable through your negligence for injuring another person whilst windsurfing, other than another member, or be responsible for damaging their property, then you are covered 24 hours a day by a $10m public liability insurance policy. A word of caution - whilst the policy will respond to claims of any amount, its real purpose is to provide indemnity to members for major claims - the $million plus type claim. Accordingly, claiming for every minor or insignificant incident has the distinct possibility of blowing future premium costs out of the realms of affordability. Even worse, a situation where the policy will not be renewed might be created. This is a distinct possibility, given today's volatile public liability insurance environment. A claim excess of $1000 applies and is payable by the claimant and is intended to discourage trivial claims being made thereby keeping premium costs to an absolute minimum.

Please be aware that the policy is a public liability policy. It does not cover you for injuries you cause to yourself or for damage you do to your own property whilst you are windsurfing. In addition, although a public liability policy, it has a member-to-member exclusion, which means that you are not covered if you are liable for injuries to another member or for damage caused by you to their property whilst you are windsurfing. Members who compete are encouraged to have their own insurance to cover the member to member exclusion. Some Home Contents policies (eg CGU) include this in their cover.

The policy does not apply to kitesurfing.